More Than Parchment
by Zeemz
Summary: Apply enough pressure and coal is bound to become diamond. Leave an eleven-year-old Naruto alone long enough and he's bound to become powerful. But would it still be Naruto in the end?
1. Chapter 1

Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto.

Chapter 1

* * *

Naruto's fingers brushed over the grimy, most likely half a century old paraphernalia. The skin on his back shivered in response. He couldn't help the feeling that choosing the old clan house was one of his more thoughtless ideas. But there was something here that pulled at his heartstrings. When he spotted the thatched and decaying roof across the creek during one of his outdoor adventures the blood in his veins churned and his mouth dried up in anticipation. He didn't know why, but he needed to be there and the only thing left to do was continue walking.

The 11-year-old reflected that it wouldn't be so bad if he found some secret jutsu scrolls but, unfortunately, the scattered, strangely empty parchment only seemed to mock him from the house corridor floor.

The blonde's sandals scraped the wooden floorboards while his bored hands scuffed the door frame as he passed into yet another room from the main corridor, the size of the house continuing to grow on his mental map. The sound of his jacket and pants rustling somehow magnetized to his ears in the veritable silence.

"It definitely didn't look this big from the outside…" muttered Naruto, accompanying an echo that disturbed the stillness.

His goosebumps were exercised for the near 100th time as a biting chill flew into his bones, "It's like these rooms ignore the good weather!" He yelled.

Parchment, pens and pencils, the blank pages and sharp points painting a telling picture despite the dust, sat at corners of the room. Closets and windows, like the rest of the rooms, were nowhere to be seen. And the only pieces of furniture were the matching wooden chair and table, again, just like the rest of the rooms.

Naruto bit down, pressing his teeth together to ward off the expletives, "What a waste of time."

He swung around sweeping the parchment into a mess of air, his legs shaving the distance to the front door. His hurried gait was ignored in the rapid intake of breaths escaping from his mouth and the shadows surreptitiously lurking in the corridor. His mind involuntarily brought doors and floorboards to life, and a suffocating feeling began to seep into his lungs. More breaths came more frequently, and the blood from his veins rushed to his ears. Finally, salvation appeared in the scrambling hands that found the front door handle, wrenching the cold metal back.

Eyesight filled with a wall of green breathed tranquility into Naruto. As if nature agreed with him, sunlight beamed through the tree canopy onto his skin.

"I-I never thought t-trees and grass would be a sight for sore eyes," Naruto panted.

His hands rested on his knees, and wonderful gasps of November air rushed into him as he swept tense eyes around the familiar trees. His bright, yellow hair obscured his vision and drew his attention to how wet the strands were.

"What the hell was that...I've never been that scared before." Sweaty hands rubbed off onto his orange pants as he straightened up and shook his head, splashing sweat onto the grass in front of him.

After gathering himself, Naruto took off in the direction of the creek that he crossed earlier. The world around him blurred into a barrage of green and displaced air whispered near his alert ears. His body moved like a caricature of an orange bullet and the worn sandals he ran in tore up just a little bit more.

"Almost there, it should be rig-" There was no creek. "-ht here." The once calm blood flow exploded, his heart virtually smacking against the hard sternum.

"It's not possible. I know it was here. Maybe it was a bit further..." Naruto reasoned.

The long stretch of grass and lack of creek did not offer any comfort. Muscles in his legs tensed and coiled as he pushed off the ground to move further ahead without waiting to catch his breath. Spotting a thatched and decaying roof elicited much the same reaction as it did the first time. With the exception of the merciless terror howling in the confines of Naruto's mind.

"This is a trick. A p-prank that's it. Dumb villagers probably set up this entire thing because they can't take a prank, it's got to be that," Naruto spluttered.

The eleven-year-old back-flipped, corkscrewing backwards and shooting off the hard ground towards the opposite direction of the clan house.

"You guys think you're so funny! You all want to see me beg for your help, but fuck that! I'm gonna get out here on my own and I'll show all of you what a real prank is, you better believe it," snapped Naruto.

He twisted his head in random directions, pupils darting to and fro for a sign of foul play. The ninja-to-be's feet moved so quickly that grass and dirt were kicked up marking the ground in a mockery of composure.

A thought whispered to him, 'What is this feeling? A prank shouldn't get to me like this!'

He looked everywhere for a sign, something to calm him, something like a pesky villager using those illusion things he remembers hearing about in the academy. And that's when he noticed.

Naruto's ears, his eyes, his everything, they didn't register an important detail. He leaned back onto his heels, stopping suddenly and dragging grass underfoot. The heavy panting halted, and his breathing was put on hold completely. And with that came stillness. The kind of stillness one can only try to imagine. Birds, bugs, wind, random white noise, it was all missing. And, as if laughing at him, a rotting roof refocused into his vision.

Naruto fell to the ground, his legs caving in on him. "A time limit. They can't keep me here forever, a day if anything. They just can't," insisted Naruto.

The rotting material of the vernacular roof demanded his attention again. In response a sudden bout of shivering embraced him. He swallowed heavily.

"I'll just stay here and wait. I give it a day tops and those morons will get bored," reiterated Naruto.

His heart slowed down and his hands stopped shaking, arranging themselves into tightly bound fists.

"I just have to wait," repeated Naruto.

 _One Day Later_

"Let me out! I'll forget this whole thing if you let me out right now. I won't tell the Hokage, it'll all just be a laugh between us, ha-ha," coaxed Naruto.

Only stone-still silence answered him. Clumps of grass tightened in his fingers.

"Come on… I learned my lesson. Happy? No more pranks. In fact I'll do you one better and buy your groceries or something."

Nothing. His face twisted in emotion and the grass was torn from the roots.

"Fine you bastard. Have it your way." Scattered spots of dirt with upturned grass decorated the valley, the furthest distance from there, that Naruto sat on.

Moisture from the soil coated the grass, and for some reason the drops of dew derailed him from another tirade. His eyes didn't stray as the drops inched down the gra-

He abruptly stood up, "I didn't go to the bathroom the whole day!" exclaimed Naruto.

Within a second he faced a nearby tree, his pants down and resting on his ankles, waiting for the inevitable waterfall and closing his eyes in anticipation. Moments later Naruto slowly walked back to his sitting spot.

"Damn it, not even a trickle… Maybe because I didn't drink anything? Speaking of," he patted his stomach. He didn't feel hungry either.

'I should be starving for some ramen at this point.'

Sweat started to gather on Naruto's palms and his arms shook. His eyes shifted up. Clouds high in the sky lazily swirled across a canvas of blue. Sky blue. Wide eyes immediately turned to the side to take in the brilliant ball of light.

"...I never even noticed. The sun hasn't gone down at all. An entire day passed and it's still daylight," marveled Naruto.

The lack of any hunger and urge to go to the bathroom, and now a day that hasn't ended.

Another treacherous thought escaped him, 'Time doesn't work here.'

He swallowed heavily.

"Can illusions even do this? Stopping time doesn't seem human," whispered Naruto. He looked down at the palms of his hands. "What's going to happen to me?"

 _Three Days Later_

It's odd how fast the sun had become annoying without the night to offset it. In the beginning its brightness was comforting. But over time, the luster of the sun became too intense despite it being unchanged and Naruto seriously considered running into the creepy clan house.

'But it was that stupid house that got me into this mess in the first place!' He reminded himself.

Exhaling heavily, Naruto continued to lay down under a tree, a spot he had been using for the past few days of sleep. His wait for the so-called illusion to finish ended in a not so spectacular fashion. The second plan, to wait for the Hokage to help, ended similarly.

'Even if this was an illusion, it doesn't matter if I can't get out of it. And it's starting to seem less like an illusion when I haven't eaten or drunk anything for so long too, the same goes for using the bathroom. The Hokage was my last hope but he hasn't shown up yet. If the strongest ninja can't help who can?'

Naruto slowly lifted himself from the ground, groaning and shaking his body to loosen his muscles. A beam of sunlight planted itself in his face and forced him to cover his eyes.

"I give up, the clan house it is," grimaced Naruto.

The walk back was marginally less terrifying than he thought it would be and the old house lost a bit of its creepiness after four days of doing nothing but waiting and sleeping. The front door stood slightly open from when he ran out earlier.

"Come on, nothing to be afraid of," mumbled Naruto. He held in his breath and edged closer to the door, the dark corridor inside making him pause.

'Well here goes.'

A few seconds later Naruto forced his body forward, only releasing his breath after seeing nothing wrong.

The open door illuminated the entire corridor greatly contributing to Naruto's calm demeanor. Like the last time he was in here, parchment, pens and pencils lay scattered across the floor.

His eyes narrowed in thought, 'It's like whoever's trapping me in here wants me to write down stuff.'

Shaking his head free of thoughts he stepped into the nearest room on his right, eerily similar to the rest of the rooms. Light from the corridor clearly showed a lone table and chair.

"Nothing to do but wait for this thing to end. If Iruka-sensei only taught me a ninjutsu this wouldn't be a problem," murmured Naruto, an attempt to distract himself.

He walked forward and sat down on the chair, pushing parchment and utensils off the surface of the table.

'I won't give in to this stupid prank.'

He tilted his head back and his eyelids drooped closed, determined to stay relaxed.

 _10 Days Later_

Numerous, graphic illustrations sketched on pieces of parchment littered the entire wooden floor and table of the room Naruto adopted as his lair. Pictures ranging from a crude drawing of the Hokage Residence to simple models of the self-proclaimed 'Bubble' decorated bent parchment.

The Bubble, a name that Naruto gave for the spherical zone that confined him. These past ten days have been stressing but Naruto did learn something. This cage that kept him trapped in a place with twisted time had no exits. He combed through most of the forests surrounding the clan house, and measured the space he had from the house until things started repeating, in other words he'd be walking from one side of the forested area away from the house when he suddenly realized he was on the opposite side a dozen steps or so into a walk heading to the house. The result? 300 and some steps in all directions from the decrepit house was the limit. Almost enough to make him feel claustrophobic when compared to the vast Leaf village. And then he remembered the air and ground.

It took him two days to think of a way to test the air. Naruto threw rocks at varying angles, the last rock thrown at a vertical angle, near the edge of the circle and waited only to see the last rock instantly appear on the grass beneath him. An unusual thing now that he thought about it. The rocks should have been underground.

Afterwards, however, he ran to the other side of the circle. What he found was what he dreaded, the rocks sat spaced out as if thrown with varying force, similar to the differences in angles he threw them in. Then, he attempted to put just his finger past the edge of the zone. Imagine his surprise when he found himself mumbling incoherently and half-asleep on the opposite side of the circle. The entire scenario was contrived with arbitrary rules, there was no doubt about that.

The ground took him five days. He had taken off his jacket and shirt, and had gone on to dig a pit with his bare hands that went straight down, marking every equivalent 'step' with an 'X' across the hard pit walls. By the 300th mark he was bouncing around with his mouth trying to simultaneously frown and burst into a smile in dreadful anticipation. It was only the tall elm trees that saved him from a pitifully short life after he had shot out from the top of what he now knew to be a spherical prison.

All in all, it was a virtual bubble stretching around the clan house into the ground and sky. And when Naruto fell strangely silent it was not a sign of frustration but rather the uncanny awareness that all of it was too reminiscent of a cruel game.

* * *

He spit out the piece of parchment he had been chewing on for the past hour. Hunger and thirst never seemed to affect him in the Bubble, but it made him feel somewhat normal to at least chew something. An uncomfortable feeling of wood against his bare legs brought his attention to the pants spread out in the corner of the room. His pants were filthy with dirt from his early attempt at digging an escape, and with no water in sight he was left in his boxer shorts. Dirt still coated most of his body, however, and his skin was stained with dry mud and soil. His hair also wasn't spared which explained the near green shade it had taken.

Pupils drifted down to the drawings on the table in front of him, the extent to his resistance and a small concession in his participation of this...game. He had started drawing after his seven day testing phase. Naruto discovered it was much harder to keep track of random facts without some record. So he drew.

First was the Bubble and its inherent cruelty, and then his thoughts ventured to his dream, his purpose. To become a Hokage is to have the acknowledgement of the villagers. That's what the Hokage always seemed to be, what he wanted to be.

His hands planted themselves on the wooden surface, and his fingers curled towards him in a tense silence.

"What am I going to do now? The old man Hokage would have figured all this crap out already," he groaned.

Memories of talks with Iruka-sensei and the Hokage came to mind, as they usually did when he was oddly introspective, and with them came the vague, but also comforting idea of the Will of Fire. How the job of the Hokage was to keep it alive.

'Not just alive, but kicking and screaming,' He thought.

Naruto focused on a drawing an arm's reach from him. Rough lines outlining what was supposed to be the home of the Hokage did not diminish the message.

"Heh. How can I keep the Will of Fire alive if I can't even beat this stupid game!" Naruto exclaimed.

Within a blink of an eye he was outside the house. Cupping his hands to his mouth, he screamed to the trees, the grass, the sky, maybe even to himself, but not to whatever orchestrated this whole thing, it wasn't important anymore, "I never run away, I will be the Hokage! I promise that I will, and I never go back on my word!"

Silence was the only response. But it didn't bother him.

'Isn't this the same as before? Everyone ignored me before, what's the difference now!? I'll break out of this Bubble just like I'll force the villagers to acknowledge me.'

* * *

"Now what was that thing Iruka-sensei talked about? Chi, chara, something with a C definitely… and I just had a class on this too," speculated Naruto.

He knew that the Bubble could only be made with the source of a ninja's power, the source of jutsu. Of course there have been stories and old folk tales about demons and gods that did the impossible. But he could only count on what's always been there. Ninja did the impossible all the time. Transformations, moving so fast that they disappeared from the average person's sight, and jumping across entire city blocks as easily as they walked. If that was all possible with ninja, it isn't hard to imagine the same with whatever made this Bubble.

'I can only break a ninja jutsu with another one after all,' Naruto reasoned.

Ninja-to-be are taught from a young age because it is generally more difficult to train an older person. Naruto remembered this practice from what Iruka explained to him in response to his complaints about the Leaf Concentration exercise. It isn't a matter of teaching material or studying. But a person's physical ability to become a ninja gets weaker over the years.

"Now the question is why... Iruka-sensei mentioned holding a Leaf on my forehead would help improve my concentration. A concentrated Ninja is a good one," he recounted.

He closed his eyes in thought, 'That's not all of it though. Anyone at any age can learn to be concentrated.' Naruto snapped his fingers.

Pushing away the mess on the wooden floor in which he sat, he placed a single piece of parchment in front of him. His tongue involuntarily found its way to the side of his mouth near his cheek.

"Iruka-sensei said chakra. Ninja have chakra and use it for nearly everything. That's why we had to learn it at a young age. It's what I use when I make hand seals for the Henge no Jutsu and Kawarimi no Jutsu." stressed Naruto.

'I'll just have to play this game to beat it then.'

Grabbing a pencil and rolling it in between his fingers, Naruto started writing.

 _Hours Later_

"I never thought I'd write so much." Naruto's eyes counted three pieces of parchment filled to the brink with writing and small diagrams.

'Maybe even more than what I wrote in all of school put together.'

He dropped the pencil, noticeably smaller than hours earlier, and stood up to stretch. Pops and cracks reverberated throughout the quiet room. Red hands, still stained with dirt, grabbed the three records and smoothed them out.

"Time to recap," he murmured.

Naruto briskly walked outside into the bright sunlight. Shade greeted him as he walked under a particularly gracious elm tree. The ground's cool surface in contrast with the nice weather- 'the only weather'- nearly lulling him to sleep when he laid down. The Hokage-to-be shook the drowsiness from his system, there was time for that later.

"First, chakra is what ninja have in them to do all the super stuff they do. Everyone has it but it gets weaker over time without training like doing the leaf exercise. Secondly, ninja can use chakra to do so many different things: Sticking things to their body, moving super fast, breathing fire, changing their appearance…" Naruto trailed off. He looked to the edge of the forest, the boundary of the Bubble.

Blinking slowly, he continued, "It's like ninja could do anything and this Bubble is just one more thing a ninja might be able to do. Thirdly, the things they can do are all called jutsu. But there are just so many possibilities that there's different kinds of jutsu. Like an illusion is a different kind of jutsu than a fireball." He nodded.

The pieces of parchment drifted down to the grass, falling from his hands. Sitting up, Naruto angled his head up to lean on the rigid bark of the tree.

"Lastly, hand gestures or hand seals can be used to control chakra to create jutsu. I need to learn how to use chakra better to make a jutsu powerful enough to break this Bubble. Illusion or not it's kept me here for too long." He sighed.

Closing his eyes in thought, he wondered if he should just randomly mix up hand seals and hope for the best when gathering chakra. An image of an explosive mushroom cloud invaded Naruto's mind. His eyes snapped open.

'No. I'll have to work my way up from the basics with the Leaf Concentration method. Besides I don't even know how long it would take me by trying every combination.'

With a quick jump Naruto grabbed a few leaves from a low-hanging branch directly above him.

"Time to get started. The Leaf Concentration exercise shows that chakra can be concentrated to the forehead. Let's see if I can get my hands to have more chakra and hold the leaves up." He reckoned.

Breathe in, breathe out. It was a mantra Naruto had repeated to himself for the past few minutes. When he did this earlier in the academy, it had taken him longer than nearly everyone else to hold one leaf up on the surface of his forehead. Iruka-sensei had urged him to focus more, but all the same he struggled. It was not until he controlled his breathing, putting all of his focus on steadying the air entering and leaving his body, that he felt the signature hum.

The hum did not emit a sound, rather it was like an arc of electricity streaming through his spine into all of his body and gathering mostly in his stomach. He didn't feel pain in the strictest sense, but it was like trying to go to sleep after training and exercise. There was only uneasiness at first, yet the feeling of restlessness grew more and more. He was charged with something, enough to do anything. It would be so easy to just crush anything in his path and..and he needed to-

"Calm down, Naruto," he scolded himself.

Like before, in the classroom, he felt the unnatural desire to work himself to the bone, and he probably would have if it weren't for Iruka-sensei explaining that chakra despite its almost magical effects was, at its core, a power like any other. And like all power, it tended to be dangerous without a leash.

'But Iruka-sensei did seem surprised with how much energy I wanted to burn off,' remembered Naruto. It was enough to have caused Iruka to watch over him for a few hours after class until he was let go. And later, Naruto could have swore that he had heard Iruka mutter something about a beast.

He shook his head to focus again on his breathing, reinvigorating the hum that had almost disappeared with a loss of concentration. However, rather than keep the bulk of the feeling in his gut, he pushed. Calling it a push is as accurate as calling a punch a blast of sound. Still, Naruto didn't know how to describe it, it was like relating the color red to a color blind person. Water dripping down your body during a shower, light shining painfully through eyelashes, seeing mountains and oceans for the first time, he didn't know how to explain it in those terms, but they came to mind when he pushed something, the chakra probably, towards his hands.

Shuddering muscles tinted with a feeling of too much in too little in his arms was the only warning before- Agony. Pure agony exploded from the side of his arms and it was all Naruto could do to not sob. Regardless, tears dripped down his eyes as he collapsed onto his knees, cradling both of his arms to his chest and dropping the leaves from his hands. He slowly fell onto his side, rolling so he was face up on the ground, watching the sky through blurry eyes.

Iruka's words gently floated into his mind, 'Be very careful when you use chakra. Your future instructors are in charge of helping you with that sort of thing. Don't try to be creative, you'll regret it.'

He couldn't even bring himself to speak about the sudden failure. Gradually, his eyelids drooped downwards and his heart beat fell into a drowsy rhythm. The thrum of pain in his arms faded away as blackness encompassed his vision.

"-ruto."

Clouds hung in the sky beyond the windows. The brilliant gleam of sunlight and a motley of orange and red dressed the skyline.

"-uto."

Multiple buildings were visible through the windows, and the low buzz of chatter and laughter seemed to sweep into the room. Room.

"Naruto!"

A voice thundered into his ears. Naruto swung his eyes to the man. He was old, with wrinkles and veins coiling around his skin. Though if he had to say old, it would be similar to how a tree aged with its dry bark, without a doubt tougher than the newborn tree.

"Naruto, are you paying attention to me?" The Hokage asked.

Naruto peered into the Hokage's eyes, taking notice of the hat that sat on his head, and apologized, "Sorry about that, the village just looked really cool."

The blonde-haired boy smiled then, a smile so wide that it narrowed his eyes, and, as if it were habit, his hand had gone on to scratch the back of his head.

"Naruto…" The Hokage spoke as he looked out through the windows, his hat shadowing most of his face. He was silent for a few seconds before turning back to Naruto, his face still inconspicuous.

"It is good to take notice of the beauty of the village, but you mustn't be distracted," scolded the red-garbed village leader.

Naruto's head fell but he quickly tilted his head up to look into the eyes of the Hokage, eager for the next lesson. The Hokage's calloused and veined hand reached into the folds of his ceremonial robes, pulling out a half bent taper pipe. As he raised it to his mouth, a fire spontaneously lit inside the bowl just in time for the Hokage to take a puff of his pipe.

Closing his eyes and breathing deeply the Hokage spoke again, "Your dream is to be a ninja, correct? A ninja must be a master of his or her own senses, so that weaknesses cannot be exploited. There are those out there who are frightening not because of their techniques or rank, but because of their observational skills. So before your enemies discover you, you must discover and know yourself."

He paused to take another puff from his pipe. Smoke gathered around the pipe and quickly vanished with a gust of unnatural air.

Putting his pipe down, the Hokage continued, "Understand, Naruto? You must know everything about yourself before you can act confidently."

With the pipe in hand the Hokage pushed it towards Naruto, "Here have some." In surprise, Naruto flinched away, falling off his chair onto the ground.

The Hokage looked into his eyes, blowing smoke into Naruto's face, "What's wrong, Naruto?"

A smell of burning paper and ash wafted into Naruto's nose. His eyes stung with tears and when he opened his mouth to complain he swallowed bitter, burning smoke. It burned beyond his body, igniting something even deeper. 'Is my soul burning?' His final thought barely processed when the heat consumed him, trapping him in a void of fiery suffering.

He woke up abruptly with his face red and hot, courtesy of the ever present sun shining down. Slowly rubbing his eyes, he was surprised to find that he didn't feel any differently. More importantly, he didn't feel the torturous pain that he had gone to sleep with. Naruto brought his arms to eye level.

'What happened? I definitely remember pushing chakra into my hands and my arms exploding in pain ...'

He waved both his arms up and down, flexing them intermittently. Other than the skin being hot from the constant sunlight his arms felt fine.

'Weird. I didn't just feel pain. I felt my muscles tearing and my bones shattering. Something like that can't be healed this quickly,' thought Naruto.

Hesitantly, as if afraid of the pain coming back, he lifted himself from the ground. He jumped around and threw a few jabs interchangeably with both arms.

'Not even a twinge of pain, it doesn't make any sense. I can heal fast, but I still feel some pain, and that's with smaller injuries too,' thought Naruto. He sat down, folding his arms to his chest and closing his eyes to focus.

'Again, it's like another random rule in the Bubble. My arms went back to not being hurt when I woke up, as if time never affected them. Like my bladder and hunger, the rest of my body is only affected by time a certain way. But I also need sleep because my mind gets tired. In other words, only certain parts of me are affected by the passing of time. Every time I wake up, though, things reset,' reasoned Naruto.

The ninja in training opened his eyes. His eyes took in the sparsely forested area around him. He stood up abruptly and briskly walked in the direction of the hole he dug a few days ago.

'If I'm right, it'll mean that some things I changed will go back to normal,' his thoughts fell silent as he spotted a grass covered glade surrounded by trees. The ground was undisturbed by human life, regardless of the fact that a 300 foot deep hole was there earlier.

'I know I didn't check it out immediately, but it must have happened when I slept the day I dug the hole.'

Naruto thought about the parchment he wrote on for the past few days. 'The words and drawings didn't disappear or anything. Like me, the rest of the Bubble has certain parts affected by time, and other parts that are reset after I sleep.'

He crossed his arms and leaned back onto a tree behind him. This would help him he realized. If he can stay intact his experimenting won't leave permanent scars and huge recovery times. Now he just had to figure out the problem with concentrating chakra into his hands. When he charged chakra into his forehead, trying his hardest, it felt like only a small stream of chakra was able to move up his spine from the stomach. His hands were the opposite. They soaked a stream of chakra so large that it was almost easy. Meaning that his hands were easier to concentrate chakra into than his forehead, and he nearly shattered his arms by overestimating their resistance.

Grumbling, Naruto spat out, "What a load of... Now I have to make sure that I don't overcharge my chakra somewhere!"

The fingers on his hands involuntarily curled into a fist. Knowledge of any future damage being temporary did little to alleviate his fear of pain in what he was about to do, but at this point there was no choice but to move ahead. Like before, Naruto focused on his breathing, slowly inhaling with his nose and exhaling through his mouth. Thrums of feedback from his entire body answered his call to charge his chakra, and the haptic feelings percolated into a familiar hum of chakra, with most of it concentrated in his stomach near the base of his spine.

A sound of teeth pressed tightly against teeth escaped Naruto as he prepared himself to maneuver chakra to his hands. It was time to only concentrate a fraction of the chakra he used before.

'Let's go!'

With a sudden exertion an electrifying current of energy ran up his arms into waiting hands, the chakra coiling and fluctuating from inside the core of his fingers to the middle of his palms. Almost instantly a horrible feeling Naruto was all too familiar with attacked him and a message of too damn much reverberated in his head. He threw his hands out with open palms and wide-spread fingers as if to ease the pressure somehow and halted the current of chakra. Doing the opposite of focus, whatever that was, the hum of chakra died down and Naruto hoped it wasn't too late.

A distinct soreness prickled his forearm and fingers. But Naruto let loose a sigh regardless. The lack of mind numbing pain from earlier was much appreciated.

'This is so much harder than I thought. Focusing on using a small amount of chakra should have helped, but my control is crap. Compared to the control I needed to finish the Leaf Concentration exercise, with the hand focusing... it's like balancing a piece of paper on my finger versus an upright needle. I have to keep trying, this time with leaves,' decided Naruto.

One quick jump and a handful of leaves later, Naruto began the long process of gaining control over his chakra.

 _Hours Later_

"No wonder!" Yelled Naruto. He had just finished concentrating chakra into his hands, but rather than keep the bulk of it in his arms and hands like his past attempts, he continued to move it outwards regardless of the horrible feeling of pressure that crept up. Like air in a punctured rubber ball, chakra, visible blue chakra, escaped his finger tips and palms in streams of ethereal light. Slowly, as if afraid his new victory would disappear any second, Naruto lifted his hands up to his face. The streaming chakra curled around his face, brushing past his skin before dissipating into the air. It gave off heat, but it was akin to a warm embrace, and the ephemeral blue light hypnotically tinting his skin also cast waving shadows moving in motion to the chakra leaving his hands.

"I made a mistake that any ninja would have seen in a few seconds. When I did the Leaf Concentration Exercise earlier, I also pushed a steady stream of chakra to the outside of my forehead," Naruto explained out loud.

In response to the lack of focus, the expelled tendrils of chakra slowed down, and the feeling of pressure started to return. Without hesitating Naruto exerted more of the available chakra out of his ready hands and also started to limit the total chakra flowing through his arms. The task had become much easier than before. With the addition of a visual cue in the form of streams of chakra his control was more concrete and his confidence grew. Similar to playing a game, Naruto's focus began to ebb and flow in response to finding the most efficient proportion of chakra needed. His focus waned when there was too much chakra charging his arms, but it came back immediately following the expulsion of large tendrils of chakra from his hands.

"But when I tried to use chakra to hold the leaves up with my hands, I didn't even move the chakra outwards, only kept it inside. If I never noticed I would have been stuck doing this training for a huge amount of time," grimaced Naruto.

The current of chakra in his arms gently stopped as Naruto reached down, gathering a few leaves from a pile he formed earlier.

'Now I just need to hold these leaves up and then I'll move on to other parts of my body,' decided Naruto.

 _16 Days Later_

It was a contradiction. Trees and glades of green encompassed his entire vision, but the picture felt bland, incomplete even. Sounds, animals, stars, they were all missing and have been for some time now. It was pure nature without a core part of nature. But what did that leave then?

"If I can't find the moment when Nature stops becoming Nature, then maybe there is no such thing as it," mumbled Naruto.

He was laying down in the elevated crook of an elm tree, the tallest one he could see in the Bubble, looking out of a hole in the canopy. The sunlight was, for the most part, hidden at this angle so as to stop it from annoying him. It left him to admire the green expanse of the forest, yet the longer he looked the less admiration he could feel for nature.

'Nature is just a catch all word for people who live in villages and cities. It's all that's clean and nice. Though it says something that humans couldn't wait to leave it for a grocery store and bar a block away.'

Naruto didn't think on amateur philosophy easily, but it was warranted with all the work he had done. It had been only a few days into training the Leaf Concentration Exercise that he was able to keep a decent grasp on the leaves on his entire body. From the soles of his feet to the back of his neck, he was able to decorate himself with leaves. The discovery of external expulsion applied everywhere unsurprisingly, however, it was hardest for the bottom of his feet. Unlike his hands, the resistance of chakra being maneuvered into his legs and into his feet was similar to his forehead. A current of chakra had to be wrestled to even enter his feet, and although this would have made things easy in the same manner as his forehead, whatever difference his feet had caused any expulsion of chakra to be explosively volatile. His feet were both resistant to chakra and volatile to chakra flow. An all around bad situation. Still, he persevered and if he ever needed a camouflage cover of leaves, well, he'd be ready.

Sighing loudly Naruto swung his legs over a coarse branch, bringing his feet up to rest directly on it. He awkwardly oriented himself so that his hands would hold his body up on the branch while his feet planted themselves onto the main trunk, leaving most of his body hovering above nothing except a long way down and grass. The beating of his heart slowed down and on an unseen signal Naruto in what could only be described as an insane act of self-harm let his hands go.

Naruto flinched in reflex but there was nothing to fear. He didn't move from his spot. Inexplicably, the ninja in training stood horizontally, defying gravity on the tree's trunk. Taking his time, Naruto walked around the trunk, revolving around it and slowly approaching the ground.

'It was completely unexpected. After mastering the Leaf Concentration Exercise, I started to test what my limit was in pushing chakra outside of my body. The last thing I expected was for my feet to be stuck to the ground.'

A few feet above the ground Naruto jumped off, flipping forward and landing in a crouch. The crinkling of the grass stole his attention for a moment to see the entire ground littered with scorch marks.

'Somehow the chakra was able to attach itself to the ground and it was like I was a magnet on metal.' Brushing off the dirt and grass lodged in his hair, Naruto ran in the direction of the house. Though it didn't matter what direction he went in because eventually he'd find himself in front of the decrepit clan house.

'It didn't take long for me to test it on the tree and find that with enough work I can run up it ignoring gravity,' Naruto bragged internally. Arriving at the clan house, he walked inside at a much more sedated pace. Though much of the fear passed, he couldn't stop the near instinctual aversion that crept up on him every time he entered the house. It faded the longer he stayed inside but whenever he left his body would have to "adapt" to the feeling again.

Finding the room he adopted earlier as his lair, Naruto's movements fell into a long practiced routine. He walked to the back wall where a row of tally marks were etched with pen into the coarse wood. Picking up a nearby pen he etched a mark near the 6 groups of five tallies, the 31st day. A month... When he explored the house, never in his wildest dreams would he have imagined staying there for a month. A few days in he stayed hopeful that it would end soon. That he'd be out talking with Iruka-sensei about all the things he could do as Hokage, or challenging Kiba and Sasuke to a fight like always. Then right before his eyes a week passed, then two, and when he blustered and said he'd find a way out all by himself he still held onto the hope that maybe it would only last one more day.

Now he knew without a doubt that escape could only be brought on with his own two hands. He doesn't know what he'll do with chakra to escape, but he knows all the best plans have steps. You can't skip to the end. And the next step at the moment was to use his new and improved chakra control to perfect the Henge, Kawarimi, and the infamous Bunshin no jutsu.

Naruto let the pen fall to the floor and ambled his way to the corner where a pile of leaves were dumped onto a thick bed of parchment. The pile was used as a bed and even though it was somewhat uncomfortable, it was leagues better than the grass outside.

Leaves flew up in disarray as Naruto dropped suddenly into his bed and before he knew it the vision of leaves swirling chaotically in the air faded into the deep black of sleep.

* * *

A dark figure shot upwards into the branches. It jumped from branch to branch, disappearing intermittently in the shadowed forks of the trunks. Without hesitation the agile figure jumped directly off a tree into the air. Shadows wreathed around it entirely as the sun acted like a backdrop to the intense display. But similar to a demon being pulled into the light, the truth finally reveals itself as… Iruka Umino fell lightly into a slightly crouched position. The faintly bent grass beneath his feet a testament to his skill in stealth.

Iruka's face was pronounced into a frown, making the jagged scar across his face even uglier. In addition to that, his closed fists and body language indicated a fight was soon to take place. And as if Iruka himself thought he wasn't menacing enough his head was tilted at such an angle to hide his terrifying, surely they could only be that, eyes. But like ice on a hot day the harsh figure Iruka cut melted away into nonexistence. A smile suddenly appeared sweeping away the shadows and a very familiar habit showed itself when a hand went straight to scratch the back of Iruka's head.

"Haha. Iruka-sensei is definitely not this mean. Kinda went overboard there," confessed... smoke erupted from where Iruka was standing and revealed a much shorter, blonde-haired boy, Naruto Uzumaki.

His chakra control had improved beyond belief. When Naruto began practicing his jutsu he knew it would be easier. But he had so much trouble before this whole mess using a jutsu correctly that doing it seemed like a dream.

A dream it wasn't. During his first try Naruto, as he formed handsigns, felt a distinct amount of chakra in his arms. The chakra circulated through a hand seal from one hand to the other, without his control. It was a feeling that he never associated with hand seals. In the academy anytime he formed hand seals it felt no different than just putting two hands together in weird ways. But as if his eyes were opened to a different world, he could feel exactly what was happening when using a jutsu. The chakra in his arms, the chakra that doesn't come from the core or stomach area, unconsciously began to flow through his hands into a hand seal.

With his left hand flat over his closed right fist, the dog seal made his chakra warp in an oddly specific way. High speed chakra flowed in a curving sensation from the left hand into the right fist, rotating inwards like a cyclone and, finally, escaping into Naruto's right forearm. In contrast, with the boar seal, the second step of the Henge no Jutsu and when both his closed hands are pointed down together and flexed at the second knuckle, had slower chakra move through one hand and bounce in parallel between palms until fizzling out near the fingertips of his other hand.

Somehow the mastery of the Leaf Concentration exercise and walking on vertical surfaces opened Naruto to feeling his chakra much more acutely. More importantly, it allowed Naruto to see what happens when you combine multiple hand seals, or modulations of chakra, together to form a jutsu.

The results were amazing. Just as he finished thinking of Iruka-sensei and using the last hand seal, the ram seal, his chakra burst into an array of jobs. Taking living form, the chakra instantly began to flow throughout his entire body and at certain points exploded. Of course they didn't literally explode, but Naruto felt the chakra charge up greatly and erupting outside the points. This all took less than two seconds and coincided with the familiar smoke emerging everywhere.

Then chakra flow kicked up in multiple places. His core, arms, legs, and the usual. But what was really noticeable was that chakra flowed down from his head into the core and spiraled into the mix, something to definitely remember. The chakra gathered at the same points where it erupted earlier, but instead of doing the same it extended in such a way that it covered his entire body's surface. And then, like a switch was flicked, every inch of the surface of his body had chakra circulate in varying degrees. Immediately his body had changed into Iruka-sensei.

The transformation was perfect on the first try. It had seemed that on top of his breathtaking new ability to feel his chakra in the midst of using a jutsu, he had gained the instinctive ability to limit his chakra from being too inconsistent and messy.

And to make a great situation even better, his feeling of chakra allowed him to modulate it directly instead of leaving it to unconscious instinct. Rather than the Henge no Jutsu's surface body chakra circulating on its own, he could actively take control and by changing the speed or intensity of the chakra flow in certain areas he could seamlessly change the transformation.

Iruka with small legs and a huge chest was as funny as he imagined.

Though it wasn't just the looks he could change. In his past attempts of using Henge no Jutsu, the technique only lasted a few minutes without interruption. But by uniformly increasing the flow of chakra in the last step of the jutsu, the jutsu felt much more stable and could even take impacts and falls.

It was just the breakthrough he needed to get out of this entire mess. Sitting down on the grass, Naruto crossed his legs and continued to think through a future plan.

If he could learn how a combination of hand seals makes a certain jutsu, then he can learn how to make a new one. Right now he knew the seals to three jutsu: Henge no Jutsu, Kawarimi no Jutsu, and Bunshin no Jutsu. Half of the twelve basic hand seals are used in those jutsu which gives him something to work with. He just has to pay attention to how each hand seal changes his chakra and what the end result is…

'I'll grab a few pieces of parchment and describe everything I feel with my chakra after I use each jutsu. Then I'll look at what each hand seal does and what they do put together,' decided Naruto.

He quickly stood up and headed towards the clan house for pieces of parchment and a pen.

* * *

"Argh! I don't understand any of this. How does a flow type 3 form outside with the snake seal!? If I follow the pattern with Kawarimi no Jutsu, the snake seal should only push chakra out as it is, but the flow somehow transforms by itself," Naruto lamented.

Dozens of pieces of parchment adorned the floor of his room. Multiple pages had sketches of a generic human body. Dark points were filled in throughout the bodies and all kinds of swirls and cycles were traced around them. A page labeled "Henge no Jutsu" had the jutsu's three hand seals drawn at the top. The flows of chakra Naruto felt when he tried the jutsu multiple times culminated in a detailed diagram of chakra depictions matched directly with the hand seals.

And the same could be said for the rest of the jutsu. Both of them were as detailed as the Henge no Jutsu page. It had seemed his success with the Henge carried over to the Bunshin and Kawarimi. Both of them were perfect on his first try.

"Another idea down the toilet," muttered Naruto. He scrunched up the paper he was working on and threw it to the side.

When he had finally written down all his jutsu observations, he sat down to rack his brain and find a pattern of logic that matched all the information. But it was useless. Every pattern he tried was contradicted faster than he could come up with them. If he tried a pattern that explained how chakra formed the Henge it would fail in the face of Bunshin or Kawarimi. If he tried to explain even basic things about the movement of chakra, it would be contradicted a few seconds later in the same jutsu!

'I don't know who in Leaf makes jutsu, but they must be geniuses to understand anything at all,' pondered Naruto.

Wiping his hands in disgust from the work he had been doing for the past few hours, Naruto pushed away the surrounding parchment and gave into the allure of the forest outside. It was a liberating feeling to say the least. Despite the fact that the Bubble had a forest without nature's sounds or even something as simple as running water, the trees surrounding the house still gave off a feeling of freedom and clarity.

"Tch…"

So much for his thoughts on if nature existed. As long as people continued to be cooped up in dark, confining rooms the appeal of towering trees and mysterious winding paths into the unknown will never go away.

* * *

A near-silent patter of running sounded out throughout the forest. Blonde hair could be seen bounding in and out of foliage at impressive speeds, accelerating by the second. But for all the effort put into hurtling through the hollow Bubble forest, the ninja-to-be's mind seemed to predominantly elsewhere.

'Okay. I hit a dead end. You can't expect anyone to be successful every time they try something new,' concluded Naruto. He bent forward with his arms extended behind him in the traditional ninja run. The run was commonly used to reduce noise from air resistance and to put the arms in a position where they can efficiently reach for weapons. It slowed him down some but it always made him look like the ninja occasionally dashing atop Leaf's rooftops. Alarms sprung to life and by instinct he ducked and weaved past a few stray branches in his way.

His inexperience showed as he moved into the less explored part of the Bubble. Elm trees were evidently much more diverse in this location. Rather than reaching the hundred foot heights near the edge of the Bubble, they seemed to have grown downwards and sideways into precarious roots and low hanging branches. Tangled branches wove in and out of one another, creating a haunting effect in the solitude of the forest. Ignoring his bout of nervousness Naruto flung himself into top gear to continue his thoughts on what his next step should be.

'If I can't understand what makes a jutsu a jutsu then I haven't found the right information. I know there's a way to make jutsu with chakra, how else would ninja have them now? So I know it's possible. But what am I missing? Chakra moving in certain ways and bam! A jutsu should appear- still, that doesn't make sense according to what I feel happening with each jutsu I've tested. There's no pattern to completely work off of!' Naruto internally groaned.

Suddenly, he swept his entire body to the right, spinning parallel to the ground. His perception slowed to a pinpoint as he watched the rush of air push off tiny blades of grass in the foreground of his own blurred shadow. He watched as, continuing his spin, his vision was overtaken by the underside of an unyielding, thick branch and felt as his back brushed off a similarly hard surface of elm.

Time seemed to return to its trajectory as his spin abruptly finished and in response he instinctively collapsed his body to protect himself. The impact was to be expected, but as he sporadically flew across the grass, bouncing every second in a rather unfunny caricature of a ball, his thoughts pondered exactly how fast he had been going. His speculation was put on hold, however, with the appearance of a monstrous tree trunk a few feet away. His eyes darted a fraction downwards to the ground, deliberately noting the blurred stretch of green amidst the disarray of loose roots and limbs.

'I'm going too fast! No time for a Kawarimi.'

In a last-ditch effort Naruto did the only thing he could think of to avoid a concussive collision, he focused his chakra. Unlike the sluggish attempts of using chakra half a month ago, the telltale hum of chakra instantly reverberated from the base of his spine craving to escape.

His body dragged by momentum closed the distance to impact to mere inches, legs and arms twirled and scraped roughly across the rooted ground.

Chakra surged throughout his physique. But it wasn't enough to do what he's always done. Sticking things to his body was useless here.

Air rushed past his ears and the looming bark was practically on him.

'A second, no, not even that…' His eyes widened. Chakra haphazardly fluctuated through his body, streaming and gathering into an ubiquitous pressure he learned weeks ago how to control.

Bone met bark as Naruto's head smashed into the unforgivingly dense tree. Hands unconsciously curled themselves into fists as his body wrapped around the tree's surface, the impact culminating in an earth-shattering crack in the desolate air. And finally, as if paying respects to Naruto's strength of will, the tree let out a creak.

25 and a half tons of tree. Heavy and daunting enough to bring a group effort of ten horse-drawn carriages to a crushing collapse. Yet, as Naruto slid off the tree to land on his back, all that could he focus on was the large crack slowly growing from where he had made contact with the wood. A shuddering sound of wood splintering echoed through the air. Pieces of wood rained down from the change in stress.

"Impossible," whispered Naruto. And just like that 25 and a half tons of pure tree split in half and fell backwards, the impact shaking the entire Bubble and deafening Naruto's ears for minutes.

Trembling, Naruto put a hand on his head, feeling for the place where a dent in his head should be. His other hand went to the rest of his body, frantically trying to make sense of the situation. There was no chance for his body to have split a tree that large. Not even if it split his head open to do it. And pain…

Sitting on the ground with the noise of his elevated breathing, the only thing keeping him company, Naruto felt little to no pain. His mouth dropped open and his eyebrows scrunched together.

"What is going on here!?" He roared. Deep exhalations of air were forced through his ground teeth.

"First I get stuck in this place for a damn month and now I can run through huge trees like I'm some kind of elephant?" Growled Naruto.

And when the adrenaline coursing through his veins finally died down, he felt the pressure of chakra bursting within his body. Quickly taking control of things Naruto expelled his chakra in visible blue streams. His hands and feet shook with energy as the plasmatic waves of light swept out to disperse into the air.

Naruto could only watch as the fantastical aura of chakra gathered around him. It was the most amazing thing he had ever seen in his entire life.

'This power…' realized Naruto.

Soon the aura disappeared into an invisible haze of energy. Clear waves of pressure and heat clashed, permeating the air. Naruto covered his eyes and turned his head away from the backlash, the pinpricks of heat stung the skin of his arms and bypassed his torn shirt to inflame his chest and stomach. Then, as fast it came it was gone altogether.

A peaceful silence was left in the wake of the chaos that had persisted just earlier. All around him crushed foliage and bit and pieces of singed wood scattered the ground. It was hard to believe he did all this.

'In fact that was the most energy I've ever used. How the hell did I do it if earlier I barely held off the pressure from a tiny amount of chakra?' Pondered Naruto.

Shaking himself free from debris and dust, Naruto carefully raised himself from the mess on the ground. He took off his shirt hoping to salvage some of its cloth for later. Despite the Bubble's helpful resetting with regards to arms and holes in the ground, it didn't lend itself to actual clothes and he needed a solution before he really became nature boy.

A single thought persisted in his mind, however, and before he could forget it he took off towards his room.

* * *

Scraping and scratching echoed Naruto's room as he filled out a new page with his recent observations. Ink traced out a tree very similar to the one he had just cleaved in two, but the focus was on human figures with obnoxiously spiky hair. Naruto had drawn in two of these figures. One was further back from the tree and had spirals representing chakra inside its body. The second figure was drawn at the base of the tree with much smaller spirals arranged in a tight packs of large numbers.

It was a clear observation that Naruto had intended to portray. When a small amount of chakra was regularly present in his body, there was a lack of pressure. But when he incorporates a large amount of surging chakra, a pressure begins to fill his body. Or to put it more simply, fewer spirals equates to less chakra and pressure, and more spirals equates to more chakra and pressure. An idea Naruto can quite easily imagine and understand.

Earlier when he first started his chakra experiments, pressure had become synonymous with an unhealthy amount of chakra. When he overcame his troubles and learned to adjust his chakra to a finer proportion he had thought his days of feeling like a bomb about to explode were over. But his run-in with a hulking mass of tree had surprisingly set him on a path to become more acquainted with it.

The scratching of pen on parchment echoed throughout the room as Naruto continued to detail his observations and ideas; with him not figuring out how to make jutsu, this might be the perfect distraction. After a few minutes he put the parchment down and stretched, satisfying sounds coming from his arms and back. Sighing loudly he looked down at the chicken scratch of what he'd generously call his handwriting.

"Somehow my body can hold a larger amount of chakra," Naruto read aloud.

"This is because I can circulate a much larger amount of chakra in my body before feeling like a walking bomb. I don't know for sure why that's happening, but if I had to guess then," Naruto could see the next part underlined multiple times, "more chakra can exist in one place because I can better control it," recited the 11-year-old. An arrow was drawn from the underlined text to the tightly-packed group of spirals in the figure at the base of the tree in his drawing.

Naruto shuffled backwards to put his back to the wall and rest his head. It was a tiny bit uncomfortable, but the slight pain was enough to distract him from the complicated thoughts he had been forced to go through trapped in this place.

"So I can become super strong if I have a lot of chakra in my body," said the tired ninja-to-be.

He brought his left hand to eye level. Fingers closed over his palm into a loose fist and Naruto bit his tongue. Better control or not, the pressure always put him on edge. And now he was about to experiment with it. Tightening his fist the half-naked experimenter began to ease the hum of chakra into existence.

The ethereal feeling was so much more fine-grained than the first time he used chakra, enough to nearly make out some kind of chain of chakra instead of the blob or vague haziness associated with it. He would have spent more time outside the Bubble on controlling his chakra if he knew it was this helpful.

Focusing, Naruto put forth the chain of chakra from his arm into his fist. Akin to someone dragging an ice cube across his forearm, a fading feeling of power traversed into his fist. Not feeling the pressure yet, he continued to devote a seemingly never-ending chain of energy. Quicker than he thought it would have taken his fist began to feel too tight for comfort, but he could feel an intense supply in his left hand. Ceasing his focus of chakra, the pressure unexpectedly left him as the chakra in his palm and fingers circulated back into the rest of his body.

The feeling was like a rush of caffeine injected into his spine. He bent down to stop a sudden bout of shivering from the rapid change of energy throughout his entire body.

"Note to self, make slow changes when working with crazy amounts of chakra," groaned Naruto. He shook his head to clear it from the jitters and... were those floating colors? Shaking his head even harder, his vision finally cleared from the energy-induced effects.

His back met the wooden surface of the wall again as Naruto refocused on the task of making his hand capable of breaking through mammoth-sized trees. Reenergizing his left hand, his fading nervousness let the chain of chakra traverse much faster into a coil of circulating chakra ending in his palm and somewhat in his fingers. As he felt the pressure start to build, he let some chakra back into his forearm but only enough for the chain of chakra going to his fist to roughly balance out with the chakra leaving his fist.

His fist was vibrating from the power, or at least he thought it was. It might have been the excitement he was feeling. In a sudden move, Naruto spun onto his feet and faced the wall behind him. And in a trademark bout of recklessness he shot his left fist forward, holding the pressure of chakra steady and not holding any strength back.

His knuckles dug into the wood, snapping it immediately and buckling it inwards like a house of cards. Splinters of wood erratically popped out of the wall into the air, but sharp cracks from his shoulder and elbow stopped him from doing anymore. Falling to his knees instantly, he held up his left arm and ground his teeth to stop himself from cursing in pain. His left fist was lodged into a 5-inch deep hole in the wall with splinters of wood digging into the skin. The rest of his arm dangled uselessly, only avoiding an unnatural angle by the support of his right arm.

"Not again damn it!" Yelled Naruto. His arm was on fire from the pain and it was obvious that his shoulder was dislocated.

Peering over to his left elbow he saw a nauseating sight. A slight piece of bone pierced his skin and was of course the second source of the mind-numbing pain he could feel. Blood drizzled out of the hole in his arm and it painted the parchment on the floor with splattered red. His eyes were closed suddenly and the weight of pain drifted his head into the comfort of his right shoulder. The 11-year-old's heavy breathing escaped into mere whines as his shoulder muffled his mouth. Biting down on his flesh he braced himself until the pain left him.

'Please stop,' plead Naruto.

Taking control of his senses, he stretched his fingers lodged in the wood and, with the chakra still amplifying his strength, quite easily broke the wood digging into his hand. He spread his fingers enough for his other arm to painlessly pull his fist out. Gently Naruto carried his broken arm as he sat in a seated position with his back to the wall. As the pain faded away to a numb throbbing he sighed heavily.

"Another failure. Great…"

* * *

Author's Note:

This is my first published fanfiction so it may not be the best writing/formatting. Hopefully it'll improve in the future. The idea behind the story came to me when I began to wonder if a Naruto with little outside interference could become strong. The length of the story shouldn't be too long, but that really depends on how well it comes together in the next few chapters. Thanks for taking the time to read.


	2. Chapter 2

Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto.

Chapter 2

* * *

A cracking noise echoed out into the calm air of the Bubble. The sound rang out in all directions before dying in the wake of a new, louder crack. The curious pattern repeated until a shout of pain escaped from a certain blond-haired figure in the center of a grove.

Naruto's blue eyes wavered for a bit before closing in exhaustion. His body sagged slightly but didn't relax completely.

'One more time and then a break,' decided Naruto. His eyes opened to focus on the ground beneath his sandaled feet.

The ground had a fist-sized depression deep within its battered rocky exterior- rock and soil had mixed with the red of blood, converging on the epicenter of a series of branching fissures. Ignoring this, Naruto put his left hand on his right shoulder and closed his slightly bloodied right hand into a solid fist. Rotating his shoulder a few times to loosen up, Naruto positioned himself into a semblance of some martial art the instructors back in the Leaf academy demonstrated. He needed to prove to himself things were moving forward, that all this wasn't a waste of time.

With a great yelp of exertion he snapped his fist into the ground, biting back the accompanying sting of rock against skin.

It tore straight through the jagged depression in the ground, burrowing past the hard dirt with ease and letting loose a devastating crack of sound. A concussive wave of kinetic energy flew concentrically from the point of impact, greatly enlarging the fissures in the ground. Dirt and dust from the impact hung in the air as a heavily worn-out Naruto finally fell onto his back.

Bare-shirted on his back, clinging onto torn orange pants, and swallowing as much air as he possibly could Naruto painted a figure unfamiliar to anyone from the Leaf village.

'That was a tiny bit better, for sure,' thought Naruto. His plans were progressing for the most part. It was slow progress, but it was better than the alternative.

His breaths for air calmed down considerably and he reached for a piece of parchment a few feet away. Jotting down a couple notes here and there with his handy pocket pen, something he took great measures to keep in the pants that were currently fall apart, Naruto staggered up and towards a sturdy-looking tree. Leaning his parchment on it he carefully scratched out his previous notes and rewrote them in much better handwriting. It didn't take him long to decide on improving his handwriting. When he had needed to look back on his writings the amount of time lost spent deciphering them was mentally painful and completely avoidable if he tried a little more.

And time was important here he had realized. Perhaps only two months ago was when he reasoned that just because time didn't pass normally in the Bubble did not mean the same would apply in the Leaf village outside. The Hokage might be scouring every tree on the outskirts of the village right now while he took it easy coming up with half-assed ideas to escape.

Though now that he thought about it, Naruto lifted his already healing fist to his eyes, maybe working on mastering super strength was a waste of time. From the time he began this side project, the main project being to solve the problem of making jutsu, it had already been four months.

Of course he worked every few days on finding something significant in the hand seals of the jutsu he knew, a spark of inspiration to lead to the pattern he could use to make new jutsu. But, sadly, it was to no avail.

He even resorted to combining random combinations of the twelve hand seals to shed some light on anything. But it was an unsurprising failure. The combinations that didn't do anything were the least of his problems. Hand seals, he had found, can individually affect his chakra. Using the dog seal for example would unconsciously animate his chakra into waiting hands like usual. It would enter a mode of energy he had started to call Hand Seal Chakra, chakra that he could leave to do its own thing. Usually a random combination of hand seals would not be able to interact with the Hand Seal Chakra from the previous seal; meaning no effect. But in some unfortunate cases, there would be an unpredictable interaction with a previous seal causing a rapid change of chakra flow. Painful chakra flow.

The last time he experimented with random hand seal combinations he burned the skin off of his right arm. He knew eventually he'd find some new jutsu if he kept combining hand seals randomly, but it would be useless if he wouldn't even be able to make a jutsu for a specific purpose. Breaking the Bubble for instance.

A loud sigh escaped Naruto. His thoughts were sidetracked by the hand seal problem yet again. It's why working on completing this chakra strength technique was so important he reminded himself. If he sat around all day doing nothing but thinking on the impossible problem of hand seals magically working, he'd go crazy.

The strides he had made in using chakra to boost his strength were probably impressive- Naruto didn't know of course if this was a common and easy accomplishment back home. But he would continue to think that shattering the ground with a punch was cool by any standards, even the stricter teachers at the academy.

But they were strides he made a while ago. Nowadays it felt like he was taking baby steps in improving his chakra-powered strength. The amount of power he had when he brought the gigantic tree down four months ago was a clear contrast to a punch causing a few fissures in the ground, however, so he knew there was more he could do.

Back when he first tried strengthening his arm with chakra using the pressure from chakra buildup, it ended with a failure because he didn't take into consideration the rest of his body. He noted down over the course of a few weeks following the breaking of his elbow and dislocation of his shoulder that he would need to protect every part of his body that would feel the backlash from punching something really hard.

By recklessly punching the wooden wall he had actually gotten the backlash of the force directly onto his elbow and shoulder, since they kept his arm straight. If he had kept going and didn't immediately stop he could imagine that breaking the rest of the bones in his arm wouldn't have been too hard.

Unconsciously he rubbed his arm. The pain would have knocked him to dreamland most likely.

Eyeing the tree he used to write on his parchment, he backed up slightly. His leg tensed while his body shifted sideways for a clear angle. The tree wasn't anywhere as big as the mammoth tree he crashed into but it did look thick enough to withstand a good deal of damage.

Breathing deeply and without hesitation the telltale hum and coiling chain of chakra made themselves apparent, emanating mainly from the core of his body. This was his Active Chakra. He knew chakra existed in his body without focusing, but it didn't have any direction. And from his observations it laid dormant until he either used hand seals or began to focus. Earlier the chain had seemed much thicker, but evidently all the work in boosting his strength improved his chakra control.

"'More chakra can exist in one place because I can better control it'," remembered Naruto from his notes.

'I'm not trying to use more chakra, and because I have better control the chain of chakra may be thinner and smaller but is just as filled with chakra as it was four months ago,' He concluded.

Continuing his show of force, Naruto arced out a chain of chakra. The chain spun and coiled downwards in an almost erratic manner but its stable path demonstrated the improved skill he was capable of now. Almost before he could take his next breath pressure began to cultivate in his shin area.

If he imagined a force of some kind were to hit his shin, he could see that most of the force would move to his knee, his hips, his lower spine, and finally his foot. He honestly had no clue where exactly the force affected, but the number of times he experimented with his chakra strengthening his legs and arms, and the number of bones broken during those "trials" allowed him to fairly guess.

His answer to stopping the force backlash of an impact from hurting him was to chakra strengthen the estimated areas. At first he had only chosen his entire leg, but when his hips nearly dislocated he began to seriously anticipate which areas he needed to pressurize. And he couldn't just pressurize those areas. He needed "strips" of pressure connected between each area in his body. All in all, it usually took maybe ten times as much chakra to strengthen a single body part. With the area of impact, his shin for example, taking 10% of the total chakra- making it a 90/10 ratio.

When he had knocked down the monster tree he didn't need to worry about any backlash since every part of his body was strengthened. And he also didn't need to control the internal pressures of chakra flow since chakra evenly flowed within his body; that would allow him to pump more than double the chakra into each limb. He had thought to just use the full body method, but the amount of chakra wasn't just large, it was by his estimates a dozen times the amount needed compared to the method he used now, quickly making it hard for him to concentrate. On top of that it was nearly impossible to move with chakra pressurized everywhere.

The climbing pressure gathering in his foot interrupted his thoughts. His foot and shin felt heavy with thrumming energy, enough to make him tense his muscles even more. His knee, hips, and lower back quickly followed suit, until finally a continuous strip of pressure began to develop between all the necessary areas. All of it took approximately five seconds.

In an explosion of force Naruto smashed his leg through the bark of the tree in front of him. The fibers of bark resisted briefly before his shin rendered the impacted wood into pulp and a shuddering wave of force erupted from the point of contact, nearly bending the tree a few inches. His leg slid to the left ricocheting off the wood as splinters coated his body, but he quickly shook them off and continued his spin from the momentum of the kick. Bringing his arm up, he spun until he was aiming for the tree again. Like his shin, his fist was strengthened in much the same way, with pressurized chakra in necessary strips of his body.

He plowed his fist into the deep indent of wood pulp created by his leg, shattering the center and sinking his knuckles deeper in the wood. The tree actually bent this time, before returning to its original position.

Naruto's fist fell to his side as he looked at his handy work. He would have felt a little bad if the Bubble didn't reset the state of the trees; despite the tree standing tall, it was scarred irreparably. The epicenter of where he struck the tree was indented half a foot deep with jagged bits of wood sticking out haphazardly from the backlash, and yellowish white pulp and splinters coated the bark.

It wasn't enough, however.

He knew he could knock a tree down with one hit. But he couldn't help but think his method was too inexact. 90% of the chakra in use protects his own body, leaving only 10% for the actual impact.

Shaking his fist to get rid of any residue he made his way to the clan house.

'And I can't just push more "chains" of chakra inside my arm or leg without destroying my body or something. I'm already building as much pressure as I possibly can,' mentally groaned Naruto.

The door to the house was wide open as usual, with light brightening the dark corridor that led to his room. The months that he passed in isolation gave him a quiet sort of strength in the form of not keeping his guard up. Any fear that someone was watching him sunk deeper into thoughts he never dragged up. Shadows stayed shadows and creaking in the house only happened when he moved around. His movements showed a boldness and openness few could proclaim they felt in any ninja village. Despite that, however, he felt hollow in the isolation of the Bubble-the boldness in being alone only validating the feeling.

Going through the frame of his door he threw the parchment bunched in his pocket to the side with a pile of others and made his way to the back wall where many tallies decorated the wood. He glanced to the side at a horizontal mark. It represented his height. Who knows, maybe he'd grow in here. Shaking his head, he scratched in another tally, by his count making this the 160th day, and then decided it had been too long since he made any significant difference with his chakra amplified strength.

'Once I began to learn to use the strip method, my strength hasn't been changing much. The chain of chakra gets smaller but the rate it gets smaller now might as well be zero. Maybe I need better chakra control exercises?' Naruto wondered.

He could definitely improve the percentage of chakra used to protect the other parts of his body, but he didn't know where to start. He'd have to be some sort of doctor or medic to know the details of the human body. If he persisted in his attempts to improve chakra strengthening with no idea on what to do, it'll would just make him miserable like the hand seal thing.

Naruto fell back onto his bed, waiting for a new idea to come to mind.

"Argh, what am I going to do now," he moaned.

He knew there was no guarantee that time wasn't passing outside the Bubble, but at this point he'd be willing to just take a long break until an idea came to him.

* * *

 _1 Month Later_

The wooden board had been cut from the floor a bit sloppily, but it would do Naruto decided.

Naruto's eyes were currently focused on an arm long and half-an-arm wide rectangular piece of dark brown wood. Its interlocking grain meshed quite nicely he thought. The sides of the board were jagged, but he thought it gave it character.

Reaching out, he ran his fingers over the top and bottom of the piece. As he thought, the wood was uncomfortably sharp and splinters stuck to his hand, but he knew these imperfections would go away in time. And if he had anything, it was time.

With a pen in hand Naruto started to carve a face onto the wood.

* * *

 _2 Years Later_

"You can't be seriously doing what I think you're doing," deadpanned Naruto. He was standing on the slanted vernacular roof of the clan house. His arms were folded and his face was attempting to convey chastisement, but his creeping smile gave the act away.

A worn wooden board was on the edge of the roof, a few inches from a few feet of free fall. It was laid down but the wobbling was enough to indicate the instability of the board. The board, surprisingly enough, had a face carved into it. Its eyes were expressive and open. And its mouth was shaped in a stupidly large smile, giving the impression that it had a silly personality.

"Right. You never do think these things through, Ikki. I would have taken you swinging across the trees again if you wanted something fun. But jumping from here? Do you want to break a corner again?" Chided Naruto.

The roof responded with silence but the blond-haired boy didn't take notice, only beginning to tap his foot on where he stood on the slanted shingles.

"If you don't come over her-" Ikki's precarious hold on the edge failed as it slowly tilted downwards, towards the ground.

"Ikki!" Screamed a blur of orange as Naruto pushed off the shingles, shooting the pieces of wood off the side with a display of strength and speed. He closed the distance in less than a second plucking Ikki from mid-air with ease and flipping forwards to land in a crouch on the ground below.

"What the hell Ikki! You nearly died!" roared Naruto. He swung Ikki up, glaring straight into Ikki's eyes.

The board of wood's goofy face remained unchanged.

"You just don't care do you? It's all fun and games with you," muttered Naruto. He let himself fall back, landing heavily on the grass outside the side of the clan house. His eyebrows were scrunched up and his lips closed into a thin, disapproving line. With a loud sigh Naruto moved Ikki to the side, leaving the board face up, smiling towards the sun.

"I'm going to work on the project, you can just sit here until you've thought about what you've done," motioned Naruto.

With one last look back at Ikki, the upset blond made his way back to the room he had been using for the project.

Kicking at some sheets of parchment in front of him Naruto barged through the door frame. The room was for the most part empty, unlike the room he slept in, he reserved this for the plans that came to mind. He had taken to calling it the Command Center but it was largely unused because of the mental drought he had been having for the longest time.

The last major project he had been working involved the building a huge wooden platform that would cover the length of the Bubble. It was a few months after improving his chakra strengthening, or what he officially called Chakra Enhancement, enough to only have 75% of the chakra diverted towards protection against backlash. The 25% chakra allowed him to enhance his strength enough to finally knock a tree down. Though it did take a few good hits.

The platform of wood was a part of Project Bridge. It involved trying to take advantage of the Bubble's logic. By building a long "bridge" that went slightly longer than one end of the Bubble to the other, he could technically have the beginning of the bridge somehow be in the same place as the end of the bridge. The contradiction might be able to create an explosion or have the Bubble collapse. He was right, somewhat. It did create an explosion.

Wood instantaneously appeared in the same position, creating a collision of energy and mass that had thrown him through a dozen or so trees. If he hadn't known how to enhance himself with chakra he would have snapped his back and neck into disturbing angles. Hadn't stopped it from hurting of course.

But aside from the failure of Project Bridge, Naruto finally thought of an idea that could occupy his mind. Project Flight. A project that would eventually allow him to soar across the skies. It was more or less a break from thinking up ideas that would end up failing to help him escape the Bubble.

He glanced over to the table in the center where a stack of parchment neatly laid. From a closer look the stack appeared to be bound together like a book, with three rings of hollow wood holding together the parchment. The front of the book was titled "Project Flight" and under it a rather bad picture was drawn of a figure with wings.

Taking hold of his pen, Naruto sat in the chair in front of the table and began flipping through the book, looking for the page where he had started writing a certain idea. As the pictures and diagrams passed he took pride in how well-documented his attempted solutions of the flying problem were, a great improvement from a few years ago.

One of his first solutions involved the Henge no Jutsu. If he could transform into anything, how about a bird?

It had worked. But only for a pathetic few seconds.

Although he can directly change the flow of chakra that comes with using jutsu, such as making the Henge last a few impacts or seamlessly changing the transformation, it takes a more than reasonable amount of chakra and control. Trying to make it last against a large impact while he's using jutsu like the Bunshin or even Chakra Enhancement? Impossible. The chakra flows interfered with each other. Attempt to change into anything inhuman-like, with a structure that made little physical sense to a human? An enormous amount of chakra and control would be needed.

His theory was that because an Iruka, for instance, with tiny legs is physically close to his body, his chakra didn't have to "cover" the difference besides changing already existing things. If he made the legs into needle legs that couldn't possibly be compared to his legs, the chakra would have to create a physical way of holding himself up, plus it had to transform to reflect needle legs.

The difference between a bird, even a Naruto-sized one, and him was huge. Nothing of the bird could really be compared. He could still hold the form if he stayed still and fueled it large amounts of chakra, but flapping his wings and flying? The disruption in concentration always screwed him over eventually.

That failure had led Naruto to try making wings on his actual body with the Henge. Wings on his body weren't as big of a difference from his body as being an actual bird, so he had thought it would be a surefire way of flying through the air. But no matter how much he tried, the wings he transformed on his back didn't function. They acted like decorations that failed to so much as slow him down from a tall fall. Maybe it was because wings were incompatible with humans, missing the right connections between muscles and nerves; a problem yet again that required medical expertise. Realizing that may have been the issue, he moved on from the idea after a few weeks of disappointing results.

The next significant idea he had tried was the use of chakra expulsion.

He stopped flipping the pages and focused on a detailed diagram. Badly shaped feet were drawn, and a chain labeled chakra was shown exiting from the soles and impacting the ground. Explanations littered the sides of the page, most of them estimating how he would have to control his chakra.

It came to Naruto's mind when he remembered climbing trees with his chakra. If he had too much chakra flowing into his feet, he would be sent flying backwards in a hastily formed back flip and the bark would be crushed by volatile chakra released from the soles of his feet. Eventually he learned to control his chakra enough to stick to a vertical surface, but the overuse of chakra gave him a plan to work with.

The only thing he gained from the idea was that he could jump even higher now.

'The chakra may have been enough to push me off the ground at first. But I couldn't get enough lift in the actual air. I need something solid to take advantage of that,' reflected Naruto.

Instead of giving up on the idea completely, he had decided to adapt it to work with his wings design from before. The current plan he was working on involved shaping pure chakra.

Rather than use wings formed by the Henge he thought it would work well enough to fly with wings of chakra. Combined with the use of chakra expulsion, he would able to navigate by expelling chakra from his feet and arms. It was so brilliant Naruto had thought it would be enough to shock Ikki from his stupid expression, but the guy remained as unfazed as ever.

Chakra, he understood, was able to exist outside of his body as pure, ethereal energy. Usually this blue-tinted energy would seem like fire, having no real form or substance save for the pressure and heat it naturally generates. Yet an idea that had been nagging him for some time now came in the form of the unique Kawarimi no Jutsu.

Back when he tortured himself to find a pattern or design in the hand seals of jutsu, he noted how the Kawarimi worked; both internally and externally. When he uses hand seals Kawarmi, he can feel how Hand Seal Chakra flows between each seal just like the other two. In the Bunshin and Henge, however, changes in the dormant chakra happen immediately from the first hand seal.

But the Kawarimi has no significant effect until the last hand seal, the Snake seal. The chakra in his core would in the end pulsate and explode outwards in an invisible current of energy. And, depending on how far the target object is, the chakra in time latches onto the object and yanks him towards its original position as it replaces him. In the academy he had remembered how physical this seeking chakra was. It sometimes knocked over chairs or tripped a teacher. When he gained more control these sort of problems disappeared, fitting his theory that the flow or chain of chakra gets smaller with more control.

"Still, when the flow of chakra hit something directly, it physically affected them. The Kawarimi no Jutsu only avoided problems like that when I mastered it. It would take me intentionally trying to collide with something to cause problems," murmured Naruto.

The proof that chakra can physically "touch" something outside his body was the basis for the idea he would be working on. If he can shape his chakra outside into some kind of tarp, acting like a wing, it would push off the air like actual wings keeping him afloat. And, most importantly, also give him the ability to control the wing with his chakra.

'Easier said than done,' he grimaced. Finding the page he was looking for, Naruto started another day's work.

* * *

 _A Week Later_

Naruto swung down from the branch he was sitting on. Looking up he saw that the tree above him was cleared of branches save for the one he was on, all of them in the pile near the clan house. With his hands over his eyes to avoid the glare of sun he quickly measured the height of the tree.

"That should be tall enough I think," hoped the 13-year-old. With chakra enhancement directed towards his legs he shot off the ground towards the clan house, blowing grass from their roots and tearing his way through the resistance of air.

Naruto arrived in record time, closing the distance in only a few seconds, and he only just stopped himself from crashing into the wall of the house by digging his feet into the grass, cutting a path of dirt.

"Damn, I'm still not used to how fast I can go with that," huffed Naruto. He shook his sandals from the loose dirt that coated them and made his way to the door of the clan house. A small board was leaning on the wall next to a great pile of branches.

"Ikki! You think that's enough branches to soften any crash landings?" Naruto asked while looking at the heap of green and brown. His hands were wet with sweat and he couldn't stop hopping from one foot to the next. Taking a glance to the wooden board, Naruto grit his teeth.

"I am _not_ nervous! It's just… it's going to be so awesome to fly. Don't worry I'll take you up with me once I get everything perfectly," insisted Naruto. Sweat watered his forehead, deterring him from talking anymore. Glancing yet again at the board of wood, he groaned in frustration and made his way back to the tree cleared of branches.

"I will be the first ninja to fly, Ikki. You'll be grateful to witness it," stated Naruto, an undercurrent of determination in his words. Taking one last look back at his sole friend Naruto forged on.

'Hmm… I wonder if I'd die from this height,' he pondered. His legs were not as steady as he would have liked looking down from the the horizontal foothold on the tree. From what he could tell, he was about half-way from the Bubble's top boundary. To get the lift required to stay in the air, he needed as much height as possible. Not exactly the best way to fly if he was ever stuck on the ground, but it was a start.

Taking a deep breath Naruto began to actively coil his chakra, despite the flow of chakra keeping him horizontally standing on the tree. Small chains of chakra could be felt circulating from his core, and with a _push_ they all surged in separate arcs of energy, exploding from his back in transparent streams of blue fire.

A grunt of exertion escaped from him as he bent his knees, attempting to replicate what he had been practicing for the past few days. The blue streams of chakra began to coalesce in response to his control. Like the internal currents of chakra within his body, Naruto found that external chakra was just as manageable, though not without a greater degree of control the further away he exerted it.

Flames of chakra became a chaotic cloud of ethereal blue. The cloud spiraled erratically, pushing off the air behind Naruto and nearly making him lose his foothold.

'Only a bit more.'

A wave of energy escaped from Naruto's back, blanketing the cloud in a fan-like shape and significantly calming the torrents of chakra. Blue flames licked the sides of the fan, eclipsing the ninja in a gleam of light. Radial flows of chakra spun from the back of the fan into the air below, heating the atmosphere and generating lift.

"Let's do this!" Gasped Naruto.

Chakra arced from the core to his feet, overflowing the active chakra and instantly pressurizing his feet. The loud cracking of bark filled his ears before a concussive force detonated beneath his feet, throwing him from the tree at breakneck speeds. Adjusting himself at an angle, he brought himself perpendicular to the fast-approaching ground, his fan for wings tumultuously holding itself together.

His legs felt a rush before an expulsion of chakra escaped his feet again, slowing his acceleration to the hard ground. Another exertion of chakra strengthened the fan of pure energy at his back, and finally, he felt at _ease_.

A pattern emerged as Naruto continuously expelled a force of chakra from his feet and refined the form of his fan. In this breathtaking way, he floated upon the very air, swaying near gracefully atop the world.

Laughter bubbled out of Naruto's mouth as he became giddy with happiness. This. This was what he lived for. Something to break the cycle of failure and helplessness he faced in this chamber of hell. Where months can pass with only thoughts of escape on his mind. He had almost forgotten what it felt like.

Letting out a breath he maneuvered his legs back, with the soles of his feet angled to the ground. A rush of chakra expelled from his feet and tore through the air, propelling him forward in the general direction of the clan house.

The roof of the house showed itself in no time at all. And his friend, he could see, was waiting for him.

"Check this out! Up here Ikki!" The shout echoed from the flying ninja.

"I'm flying! Could you have ever imagined a ninja flying? This is a first!" The sheer happiness in his words resonated for several seconds.

Taking his time Naruto flew in a circle around the house. The air whipped him in the face as he increased the amount of chakra flying from his feet, speeding him up to the point that he was a blur in the sky.

"Whoo! Watch this!" Whoops of laughter trailed the blur that began a path upwards, corkscrewing up.

The wooden board remained still.

'Diving from the top is going to be amazing!'

The blur spun upwards exponentially faster, nearly disappearing in the air. Naruto could barely see now, his eyes straining to remain open and his head dizzy with movement.

His body shuddered violently, spinning him off-balance.

'What was that?' Glancing behind, his eyes widened as he struggled to stifle a gasp. The wing holding him up was in pieces. Bits of chakra flailed around, barely holding together from the violent winds.

'It failed!? I have to slow dow-' Naruto's skull caved into the ground in front of the house. Blood and brain matter splattered everywhere as red droplets colored a flimsy piece of wood with a face carved into it.

Naruto's spine was bent backwards, nearly cut in half as his legs hung disturbingly upside down. His shoulders and arms were shattered and his flesh flowed more like blood than human tissue. White bone stained in oozing red decorated the corpse in a terrifying recreation of the torn branches a few feet away. A corpse that once was Naruto Uzumaki.

* * *

Deep inside a murky darkness, slitted crimson eyes opened. They stood still for a moment before the realization sank in.

Water exploded away from beneath the monstrosity as it smashed against the prison gates, folding the steel and tearing away the seal's power. Its sharp claws tore wreaves in the walls, obliterating the metal instantly. Gnashing gargantuan teeth lunged out and a tremendous pressure filled the room as the Kyuubi no Yoko escaped from its prison of thirteen years.

Abruptly, the darkness around it blackened into something that it did not know.

" **This is Death, then."**

Blood red bubbled into the dark, casting a scarlet light over the black stillness. The prison was flooded with smoky water, pitch black in the shadows. Pipes ran across the metal walls and the ceiling of a distinctively industrial room.

Bubbles of red chakra swirled slowly away from the large beast as it shifted its head towards the creeping darkness in the hallway, watching it encompass everything it touched.

" **To think you would die so soon. Pathetic."** A booming voice growled and the feeling of primal rage hung in the air at its words.

Darkness had already entrenched the room, overcoming the crimson chakra of the beast. It crawled up like ink, taking everything into nothingness until only the rage and insanity of cruel red eyes peered out into the abyss.

" **Reforming will take time, but do not despair human…"** A thunderous, mocking laugh echoed into the nothingness.

" **In death you will never feel the hatred I have for you."**

Specks of black began to close in on the beast's vision. It knew that it would live on despite this being its first taste of death. Yet the idea of nothingness, of the absolute abyss that pervaded its very chakra… Perhaps it understood humans more.

' **In their weak, short-lived bones they may know the terribleness of what awaits them, and perhaps committing acts of hatred and gluttony alleviates that fear.'**

Nothing was left, now. But what was _it_ again? What were these thoughts? It could think, therefore it must exist. Why?

Light. Shining and blinding light struck the beast, scattering the darkness from wherever it came from. A radiant glow glinted off the metallic walls and the broken bars of the gate, and, inexplicably, the Kyuubi no Yoko's eyes snapped open.

" **I do not understand, what is this!?"** The beast of chakra roared with a ferocity that shook the walls. Its voice forced waves of water to explode from beneath it, cracking off the metal.

Pieces of metal had begun to float, twisting and collapsing into something unbroken. Crimson eyes flew to the phenomenon, watching with a laser intensity as entropy itself reversed. The metal coiled and spun into gargantuan gates, the same as the original in almost every way. With a magnetic pull the gates smashed into their proper place, the metal meshing and coming together with a sharp gong. Yet the gates remained open.

And then it clicked.

" **No!"** It spun back towards the source of the light, its claws furrowing into the cement and water below it.

" **Naruto! To think this place you have found can reverse even death! Your pain will never end, I will gnash on your bones, tear your entrails out, flay you aliv-"** The seal finally attached itself to the gate and tendrils of the accursed black fuinjutsu warped out onto the Kyuubi's chakra and began to pull it with an impossible force.

Its voice and thoughts fell into a familiar cloud of rage, with nothing but murder and incoherent growls escaping its mouth.

The gates began to close inwards in sync with the seal's pull, ready to entrap the Bijuu once again. In a sharp moment of clarity, the Kyuubi's crimson eyes settled onto the end of the hallway.

" **Experience loneliness again, Naruto."** A wave of red chakra flew from the Bijuu, coiling and screeching down the hallway until it disappeared from the prison. With a sharp snap the hated bars of metal once again encompassed the Kyuubi's vision.

* * *

Naruto awoke to burning. Burning that staggered his thoughts and body. Everything felt fleeting, as if nothing mattered. Yet there was such a feeling of hate and burning within him. His hands flew up and reached for his face, scrambling to rub away the feeling.

"Agh!" The boy jumped up as he realized his arms were covered in a fiery aura of crimson. Confused and in pain he looked up to see everything around him on fire. Or something close to it. The same crimson flames that seemed to coat his entire body were scattered below his feet in fiery waves and in a crater around him.

Quickly hopping out of the crater he rolled himself onto the clear grass a few feet away. Eventually the burning seemed to die down, leaving raw, pink skin. Something he knew would go away after a day's sleep.

Now less in pain and more confused, Naruto gingerly picked himself up from the ground. Looking at the crimson that pocketed the ground here and there, he could with full confidence say it was chakra. It burnt and there was lot more than he had ever seen, but still chakra.

Yet he didn't have red chakra. Maybe something went wrong with his chakra wings? Of course. They lost their shape and twirled out of control. Though he couldn't imagine what could go wrong to change the color of his chakra. All he did was fly...

Naruto's pink skin paled. Water gathered in his eyes but he couldn't even muster the energy to rub them.

"I...I died. I flew up and like an idiot I forgot about what happens if you pass the Bubble's boundaries." He breathed heavily and his eyes couldn't stay still, wandering in every direction for something to avert his attention towards.

"I was going so fast, there was no damn way I could have survived." His voice came out little more than a whisper. Naruto suddenly moved forward, heedless of the flames of chakra around him.

The heat from the flames suffocated the air, nearly making him choke but he persisted forward, swaying in the direction of the house. It was just ahead. His mouth was dry. Decrepit almost. Yet his tongue could break into dust and he would still continue forward.

Ikki. What was once a board of sturdy wood, was now mostly charred, enough that a single touch would shatter Ikki's frame. If it wasn't for the burnt wood being the same size as Ikki and in the same place he left it, Naruto wouldn't have believed it. Crimson chakra licked the grass around the ruined piece of wood, and it dawned on him that he was responsible. That he effectively killed his friend.

"No!" He dove into the flames, ignoring the heat and stinging heaviness that came with them. Naruto's fingers closed around the frail wood, hoping anything was salvageable. That he was alive. His hope broke into pieces as the board did, its frame collapsing into black particles of ash forever separated from any resemblance to Ikki.

He was silent. The skin on his fingers burnt numb and crimson flames howled into his ears. Yet tears wouldn't come. It was as if the grief was too powerful for it to be expressed.

Yellow hair fell over his eyes as he trudged out of the suffocating presence of the chakra, but his lungs still felt a familiar suffocation, one that he desperately tried to ignore.

The Leaf village. He woke up every day in a village cocooned by larger than life trees, filled with ninja and civilians with lives all their own, and he felt more alone than anything in the world. No family and no friends, all he had was his big mouth. Hoping maybe it could talk him into a position of respect and acknowledgement.

Iruka and the Hokage would talk to him. Maybe he'd get an extra conversation or two from the Ichiraku family when he ate at their ramen stand. But all too soon he'd walk back to his apartment and as if he repelled the spirit of the village itself, villagers looked away from him, those who looked didn't have anything good in their eyes, conversations became heated mutterings and whispers, and not one person smiled at him. Not one person gave the effort to even welcome him. A simple smile, and maybe, just maybe, he could feel the hold on his heart loosen.

It was in the darkness of his apartment that his thoughts swirled in dark directions. The Hokage never cared about him. He looked at him just like he did anything else. His soldiers, his civilians, and maybe even his own family, in the eyes of the Hokage there was something far beyond all that, a picture unseen.

Was that all he was, a puzzle piece in the elaborate puzzle ensorceled within the Third Hokage's mind? And maybe if his piece fell off into the darkness, the Third's thoughts would glance over it and move on to the rest of the puzzle.

And Iruka. The Ichiraku family. Was he anything other than a student and a more exuberant customer in their eyes? The darkness of that room almost fed into the darkness that hung behind his eyes.

He moved within the forest at the edge of the Bubble. It seemed darker now. More sinister and wilder. His thoughts drifted back to the dark apartment where he was forced to think. Ikki was gone. Or maybe he never existed. It didn't matter anymore. This feeling, the suffocating loneliness, always came back eventually. Maybe he'd get a few classmates to laugh and it would go away, for a time. Or the Third would be more emotional in his talks and lectures and he'd feel a warmth inside before the chill of advice too old for a child battered him. Even sharing a small laugh with the silent Ikki wasn't more than a temporary distraction. Maybe if he stayed in the darkness forever he'd get used to the feeling.

The sound of the roaring flames died down as Naruto slowly disappeared within the shadows of twisted trees.

* * *

 _5 years Later_

Azure eyes lazily opened. The eyes were still. Unnaturally still in the darkness around them. And then, as if a trap was set off, they narrowed in a certain direction.

"Well, well, well… I wouldn't have thought you to escape so quickly." Rising from where he was sitting in the darkness, Naruto, wreathed in shadows, swept his way to the edge of the Bubble. It didn't matter what it said, he would take care of it quickly.

Drifting closer to the clan house Naruto finally stopped, waiting for something.

"There's no point in hiding. Face your fate." His voice was strangely gentle.

A sudden sound to his left alerted him to a figure stepping away from the tree it was hiding behind. The hidden figure left the shadows into the sunlight, revealing its form as a replica of Naruto, with a few differences. The age was the same, an 11-year-old body with an 18-year-old mind- the dissonance becoming more disconcerting over time. Aged, brown leaves and branches were strung together to protect the clone's decency in much the same way as it did his. Its hair, however, was darker, but not by much. Its mouth was quirked in an uncharacteristic smirk, and most glaring of all, its pupils were red as blood, outlined by black sclera.

"Naruto. Why do you insist on doing this?" The words came from the deviant clone of Naruto in a teasing manner, as if it knew the answer already.

"I understand keeping your home free of pests, but really. It's been years since you found me. A man's gotta know when to quit, ya know?" It chuckled at its own words.

His face blank, Naruto shook his head, already tired from the niceties that were repeated time and time again. He waved his open hand to the side, his eyes never leaving the red of his doppelganger's. The ground behind his hand tore in half, as if sliced by an enormous force. Yet, by the amusing smirk on the clone's face it expected the result. It was near impossible to catch each other off guard nowadays.

To the left of Naruto, only seen through sensitive eyes, infinitesimally thin strings of chakra hung loosely in the air, fluttering in time with a nonexistent wind. The strings extended on across the stretch of space around him and his enemy.

Moving his hand up, Naruto curved his fingers inwards and the gleam of chakra coming from his hand was caught by his opponent, if the narrowing of his red eyes was any indication.

The cords of chakra warped out in response to Naruto's moving fingers, twisting and dragging with them the chakra strings his opponent attempted to bisect him with. He flicked his thumb down and in near absolute silence, a battle had begun that spanned everywhere. Swirls of strings covered his entire vision, and outside of it as well, each an extension of his body. Yet the same could be said for his opponent, with chakra identical in scope and power the red-eyed Naruto sent out strings of chakra to meet his own.

The chakra clashed silently together with dizzying accuracy, each string striking the other within a margin of inches. Twisting and turning his fingers Naruto slashed open the cluster of strings 45 degrees to his right, his eyes never leaving his opponent's. The ground to the left erupted as two strings struck precariously and were forced downwards, showering the battlefield with dirt.

He picked his foot up and smashed it in front of him, stepping on a few errant strings that had gone through in the distraction the eruption caused. The cords of chakra and dirt under his foot collapsed from the enhanced strength, and a crater cracked its way into all directions.

It was time now. He weaved his fingers together and with a quick expulsion of chakra jumped high into the air, approaching the halfway point to the Bubble's boundary. And then he stopped moving.

Chakra strings stretched out from his entire body. His legs, arms, and torso were so littered with strings that it appeared as if an aura of chakra surrounded him. But trained eyes, specifically red ones, could see that each string of chakra was distinct. Each one long enough to extend dozens of feet around Naruto, hanging aloft in the air.

The science behind it was perhaps beyond the both Naruto and his opponent at the moment, but it was essentially the imitation of Ballooning spiders. A spider, relatively light, can spin webs shaped to capture the air and its currents so as to achieve an effect similar to flight. Once a year villagers in the Leaf village could look out across the Northwest forests to see thousands of spiders migrate through the air with their own silk webs. Iruka had described it as Ballooning, only possible because of the light weight of spiders and the wind.

He brought his arms closer and flicked both his ring fingers, and a series of chakra "webs" holding him shifted by a fraction. Immediately, Naruto flew through the air, twisting his way above the doppelganger.

The idea of Ballooning wouldn't have been possible with the silk that spiders used. Through chakra and its discovered principles did the idea become feasible. As chakra becomes more refined and controlled by a user, more of it can exist in the same place, as he oft likes to repeat to himself. In other words the density of the chakra grows.

However, its weight does not change by very much. Of course if you were to throw a significant amount of chakra on the ground it would destroy a few things. But that is a result of the chakra's power and energy. Like electricity or lightning, a large amount of energy could be concentrated within strings of chakra, but the weight they experience is negligible.

Thousands upon thousands of effectively weightless strings could capture the slightest pockets of air, ultimately gaining enough drag to keep his body soaring through the Bubble's atmosphere. With such an ultimate control over his strings of chakra, he could manipulate the forces of air from any direction, mobilizing his body like a machine. A great contrast and improvement to the flimsy wing he formed from chakra years ago.

Naruto approached the point he would begin his plan. His opponent did not usually fly, equal power did not extend to equal personalities and opinions. Whereas he was partial to the feeling of flight, the darker clone preferred to hide behind canopies and take advantage of distractions. Many times in the past did he fall to its deceptions. But he had learned long ago.

"A smile on your face? It looks like you're quite a bit more excited today for some reason. I suppose I can't keep you waiting," noted the doppelganger. The smile on Naruto's face did not fall.

'You can't resist crushing any happiness,' silently confirmed Naruto. With a large yell the red-eyes of his opponent narrowed into pinpoints and from the trees themselves, thousands of strings arced around Naruto, seeking to enclose his body from all sides.

They twisted together into a single mass of vibrating blue chakra, warping through the air at velocities Naruto could barely make out until just below him they exploded into every direction. Whirlwinds formed from the force of the doppelganger's chakra, pushing him off-balance despite the hold he had on the air.

He flew back, tilting his head down to avoid the brutal swipe of hundreds of strings clearing the air above him. The resultant shock wave of air pressure jostled Naruto's brain enough to disorient him and he fell several feet before recapturing control of his strings. With a sharp clap of his hands above him, chakra shot from his fingertips upwards, twisting and ripping through the doppelganger's strings. He retracted them quickly with an open palm and stretched fingers, spinning them into a circular web of energy just in time to deflect the piercing strings of his opponent from opening holes in his heart and throat.

"Damn, lost sight of him for a second," muttered Naruto. What was once the doppelganger fazed away into the air.

'Bunshin.'

Sweeping his eyes across the ground he quickly found his prey atop the tree nearest to him. Without hesitating he cut the string littered air in front of him with hundreds of his own, each carving and slicing past his enemy's defenses with ferocious velocity. A branch on the tree suddenly exploded into smoke and a shadow jumped through the cover onto the ground, barely escaping as dozens of trees collapsed behind it.

'Henge.'

His mind shifted as he arrayed the entirety of his strings with one thought, and like a bomb exploding, the Bubble itself groaned from the force of thousands of strings flying upwards through the boundary and, with tremendous effort, instantaneously shooting out up from the ground, defying time and space. The doppelganger's red eyes went wide a fraction, but it gave away its unease all the same as hundreds of strings perforated its body. The illusion faded away as a large block of dirt fell apart in place.

'Kawarmi. Time to end this.'

Letting go of his chakra for just an instant, the strings of chakra that blanketed the ground spun into disarray, collapsing from the immense amount of chakra concentrated within each one. Wildly expanding, each string coated the ground with a tremendous presence of heat and pressure, erupting the ground into rivers of melted slag.

And then he waited. The bubbles of super heated rock beneath him giving away to rising steam, coating his body and the atmosphere around him with a hot cover.

'Perfect.' A satisfied smile inched its way onto his face, and the trigger was finally pulled. Red eyes tore through the steam from behind him, the doppelganger slicing its hands in an arc to deliver a decapitating blow with bladed strings of chakra. Glancing behind him Naruto made eye contact with red, his eyelids drooped down in lazy expectancy. Red eyes went wide.

A bullet of chakra tore through Naruto's left shoulder and into the stomach of the doppelganger, ripping a hole in its flesh and spine. With a closed fist, the bullet of chakra exploded into hundreds of strings and, with a small smile Naruto had won.

He floated lightly to just above the ground. It was cooled enough for him to be this close but not enough to walk on just yet. The doppelganger hung in the air behind him, its body entwined in chakra strings that covered every square inch of its body.

"I suppose you want an explanation, or rather, I suppose I want to gloat. It's actually pretty simple if you think about it. The battles we have fought always end in either brute force, with endurance and tenacity winning out, or in deception. I know this and you know this. But I also knew you wouldn't commit much of any deception against me until I decided to take the brute force method." Naruto moved in the direction of the field they started their fight in, the blatantly enraged doppelganger floating behind him.

"Using my entire arsenal of strings to wipe you out in this molten slag of a battlefield? That would be enough to stir you to attack from the shadows. But it would be obvious if I led you into a trap. I had to make it seem plausible, and even then I had to hurt myself to get a clean hit," conceded Naruto, his hand closing around his injured shoulder. The wound was already healing, helped by him sewing it shut with his strings.

He finally made it to the center of the battlefield, where the formation and the indent of the ground indicated a hole lay under the surface.

"Leaving a slight opening near my feet was easy enough, but if I were to react overtly then the plan would have died before it began. So I caused a certain clash of our strings to ricochet off each other on my left, and then used the flying rocks and dirt distraction as a lure for you to attack. When I attacked your cluster of strings to my right, it was to create an artificial weakness on my left. You attacked exactly where I wanted you to, close enough to my feet that a simple stomp wouldn't cause you any suspicion." Naruto chuckled slightly and waved his hand in the direction of the indent, his strings tearing it open to see the large tunnel leading to the boundary of the Bubble.

"The foot stomp didn't just form a crater, it forced your chakra underground while creating cracks that permeated most of the field. As I bombarded you with my strings in the air, and with the knowledge that you tend not to use too many of the same jutsu in a row, I waited for the right moment in which you would use Kawarmi. The jutsu works by sending out your chakra to act as a "hook" for the replacement, making the chakra that I stomped below the surface too perfect for you not to use. But there was always a chance you would be too far from your chakra in the crater, so as insurance the cracks acted as gateways in all directions for you to exploit." He peered into the tunnel, wondering if he would be able to find the answers to escaping the Bubble in there. He shook his head. Other matters awaited.

"When you did exploit it, I wanted you to realize I was unleashing my full power and I wanted you close enough. Engulfing the ground with thousands of exploding chakra strings was enough to lure you through the Bubble's boundary under the ground. My smile at the end was a bit of bait for you to take so I can perfectly time when I could tear a hole in your stomach." Naruto stopped smiling suddenly. His demeanor shifting to something a bit more closed off.

The red eyes of the doppelganger had long settled into a numb fury. It had realized the plan a few seconds after Naruto defeated it, but as it was, laid out before it, a lesson was learned. It would not underestimate Naruto's mind again.

"It has been 4 years since I took back control. It used to be every 3 months or so that you would attempt to regain what you had lost but now the time has shortened by half, a troubling fact. I have not lost in quite some time, however, and I do not plan on waking up in darkness ever again." Naruto's tone was deathly serious- barely more than a whisper.

He did not bother to look at the doppelganger any longer. He squeezed his fist and the red eyes did not have time to widen before it was crushed into blood and liquidated flesh. Blood dripped onto the ground as the ruined body was cocooned within the death trap of chakra strings. The blood slowly began to lighten, its color shining with an inner light. The body soon began to follow and in a fiery explosion of energy, chakra radiated out from the doppelganger. Its flesh and bones dissolved into blue particles of chakra, warping into a stream of energy.

He did not flinch as the chakra flew into him, directly through the fuinjutsu on his stomach.

"It won't be long now." Naruto rubbed his stomach. His face was strangely calm, almost serene.

* * *

 _Written Works of Naruto Uzumaki Vol. 6_

 _I do not remember much of what happened after I had left to go into the forest approximately 5 years ago. My memories, much like my emotions, had gone into a dark place._

 _It was, I would say, a few months after my first death that I had woken up in a hallway- tinted yellow from cluttered incandescent lights hoisted on industrial walls. Water flooded the floor and pitch blackness had strangely persisted at the end of the hallway despite the lights. I do not remember moving across the hallway, but I distinctly remember entering the chamber holding the monster._

 _Stories were told late in colder Leaf village nights. In the fall and sometimes during the harsher winters, older villagers had talked-as if they had come to agree on when it was allowed. Whispers and a quiet hysteria flourished in this mass remembrance. About what it was like during the attack of the Kyuubi no Yoko. About the sheer malice that pressed down on the very air, the screams of those unfortunate enough to have touched the fiery crimson chakra as their skin sloughed off. And the terribleness that came with losing so much in so little time._

 _I had listened to the stories of course. It was not a secret that the Kyuubi no Yoko attacked, and as kids were ought to do, they took these stories for themselves to appease childish curiosity. Of course it wasn't helped that anyone old enough to have experienced the tragedy would falter at the mention of the Kyuubi. Children his age, in circles within empty parks and classrooms, told tall tales of how the monster could appear anywhere at anytime. It would seek the blood of sacrifices to raise the dead or bring about the end of the world. I had never believed the stories until I looked past the prison gates._

 _Its eyes were the worst. Crimson orbs that rooted you to the spot, flatly analyzing every little aspect of your appearance- Its nine tails had swiveled in and out of the shadows of the prison like hidden serpents. I had made out the body of a fox, but not entirely so- its body abnormally deformed by human traits. It had spoken with a hint of amusement in its voice, but I felt the malice, the rage trembling beneath the surface. Struck with horror I did not register its words until minutes after it was done speaking. I was trapped in here, it had said. Overtaken by dark thoughts and the isolation within the Bubble I had been inflicted with a curse. Not a conventional curse you would hear about in witches' stories, but the curse of the mind. And then it left me alone and confused, and I had felt darkness fill my vision._

 _When I woke up later in the same industrial hallway, I had felt the passage of time go by again. My mind had felt heavier with weariness, as if the world in front was fading. The Kyuubi no Yoko noted the same, mockingly pointing out that the darkness was growing. I had been too frightened and tired to demand answers, but it continued its explanation from where it left off from before. Glancing at the prison gates it told me of how I was chosen as a sacrifice for the village. A babe to bear the burden of the Bijuu. Then it laughed- fury and amusement converging in a caricature of a fox's face. It did not care for a few decades it had said, it was used to such things._

 _Jinchūriki- Power of Human Sacrifice. The term denoted my kind. Humans sacrificed by their villages and ninja forces to protect them from a Bijuu's fury and to protect them in war, exploiting the beast's power. Yet power comes at a cost. Jinchūriki were ostracized by society, either by ignorance or fear they are considered outsiders. It had explained much of my childhood in which disdain marred most of my interactions with villagers-this knowledge did little to alleviate what the Kyuubi ordained to explain next._

 _A Bijuu's power did not just bring about social rejection, it played havoc on a Jinchūriki's mind. Nightmares and dark thoughts in a normal human would perhaps lead to depression and an unstable mental state, something intangible and ethereal. But fuinjutsu created for the benefit of sealing Bijuu are tied to the warden's mind- connected thoroughly with the Jinchūriki's willpower and mental state. It is a necessary aspect to ensure eventual command over the beast's chakra._

 _I distinctly remember the feeling of foreboding I gained at the time, but the Kyuubi either didn't notice or ignored it._

 _This intrinsic connection between the mind of a Jinchūriki and Bijuu's chakra is helpful to subjugate power beyond the dreams of many men, yet inherits a vulnerability common amongst troubled individuals. Ominous thoughts, subconscious desires, traumatic events- all have the same access to the fuinjutsu connection. In a normal human, it would be essentially nothing to worry about. Jinchūriki were different. In despair they could, in effect, attack themselves with the Bijuu's chakra- something that had happened a few dozen times in the past. Those thoughts could even take form, using the chakra as a medium._

 _The puzzle pieces aligned themselves. I knew then my failure. I had given into to the darkness- the Bubble, the isolation, the death of a true friend that had never existed. It was too much and I had… let go._

 _At that point in time I had heard enough to understand the Kyuubi. The weakness I felt, the darkness fraying my edges and the memories I could not quite capture- A darkness had been inflicted upon my own mind._

" _How do I stop it?" The question still rang in my ears. It was said pathetically, as if defeat already had come and gone. But the Kyuubi's reply stung even more._

" _ **This is your mind. If you had wanted it to stop, it would have already."**_

 _One year had passed before I was able to escape the suffocating pattern of waking up to darkness and a monster. Perhaps the dark apparition that imprisoned me within the fuinjutsu was bored, or I had somehow gained the fortitude to take control. I still do not know._

 _Waking up to the world after a year was a salvation beyond anything I could think of. The Kyuubi no Yoko's presence haunted me when I was awake and when I was asleep darkness encroached further into my psyche, seeking to destroy me forever. But by a miracle I escaped and I was desperate to stay that way._

 _It was because of this that when I had woken up to a doppelganger, its pupils red and sclera black, that I had reacted much more strongly than I would have normally. Before it even had time to make a biting remark I was on it, my limbs all enhanced to the breaking point with chakra. It met my attacks equally in chakra. But my ferocity borne from desperation had opened the path to victory and it was killed. As its body took the form of chakra and sunk into my stomach I had been too tired to scream, but I realized in that moment I was stuck with a parasite. One that would stop at nothing to escape the overbearing presence of a Bijuu and eternal death._

Author's Note:

This took a much longer time than I thought it would. It greatly increased my respect for those who can consistently put out 10k+ chapters every week. Anyways, the story may feel like it's dragging at this point in time but I think things will move extremely quickly next chapter. Someone mentioned that I should show some of Leaf to give everyone a bit more perspective but you'll see the reason for my persistent capture of Naruto's experience in the Bubble. And also, thanks for the reviews and favorites!

 _Extra Clarification for Chakra Enhancement:_

I read over some of the Chakra Enhancement stuff and thought it needed a bit more clarification for anyone interested. Basically, when Naruto ran into the tree he pressurized his entire body with a lot of chakra. Because of this he didn't need to 1) worry about backlash against unprotected body parts, and 2) balance the pressure in his body.

1) is obvious, but 2) refers to when Naruto had to balance the chakra chain going into a body part and the chakra chain leaving from it. This balancing creates more pressure (from the nature of both chains colliding) which shrinks the amounts of chakra chain the body part is capable of taking. Because he didn't need to balance anything out when he crashed into the huge tree, Naruto was able to push much more of the chakra chain (hence he used more chakra) inside his body before feeling maximum pressure, creating a lot more strength with more chakra.

Since Naruto won't be enhancing his entire body because of the problems associated with it, he's stuck with improving the ratio of chakra used by studying his body like a medic/experimentation or making the chain of chakra smaller through control exercises.


	3. Chapter 3

Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto.

Chapter 3

* * *

Naruto woke up to a familiar wooden ceiling, the knots and lines in the wood nearly memorized.

He had felt as if he had woken up from a long dream, that he merely walked out of the forest that day and went to sleep in his own bed. But the uncomfortable make-shift cot prickling at his back was a painful reminder of reality.

A weary sigh tumbled out of him. "I think it's time to begin before it's too late."

He rubbed the crust from his eyes as he unsteadily stood up. Yawning loudly, Naruto threw on a makeshift shirt that happened to look closer to a pile of grass strewed out on the floor, his old shirt lost in the dragging years.

Vanishing with a burst of speed, Naruto scattered away from sight. His sudden departure uprooting ink-heavy parchment and ink-empty pens.

In the center of the Haunted Forest, the copse of trees within the Bubble that boasted gargantuan and twisted trees, Naruto appeared in a cloud of kicked up air and dust. His face was blank, yet it did little to conceal the tensing of his muscles that gave away his anxiety.

He looked ahead and saw he was just on the edge of the Bubble, a key part of his plan. Dark blue irises swiveled over to the roots of the trees around him.

'This should provide a good anchor.' The self-assurance did little to alleviate the heaviness building in his stomach.

'It's not like I can do this again if I fail.'

With a deep breath he began to focus. His virtual mind flew to the oscillating flow of blue chakra within his core, its mechanical nature a far cry from the churning and chaotic wisps that eluded his control when he was younger. But he ignored the chakra and only moved further mentally, seeking something even deeper within his body.

Red energy whipped into his mind, electrifying his carefully maintained senses. The pulsing nerves running down his neck felt a toxic fire, nearly bringing him to his knees. But the real distress he realized was the sudden lack of clarity he had, nearly forcing him to wipe his hands with the plan.

'No! I can't stop now. I just have to keep going.' His face twisted in effort and his teeth began to grind against one another.

More red invaded Naruto's senses, real and mental. The bubbling chakra of the Kyuubi no Yoko had begun to crawl across his body, quickly taking the shape of something fox-like in nature. But he didn't, or more appropriately, couldn't stop.

'More- More- Moremoremore!' Lines on his face darkened to coarse black and his hair flew up with a shock of crimson energy. His eyes shifted into crimson orbs dangerously close to the Kyuubi's. Prickling at his hands stole his attention as he saw claws rip from his fingertips.

Two tails of crimson chakra grew from his cloak and the haze in his mind intensified. His thoughts couldn't capture anything tangible. Plans, escape, the Leaf village, thoughts and concepts normally ingrained leaked from his mind as if they had never existed, only to be replaced with a swell of rage and malice. He could only futilely hold onto one word- more.

Three, four, five tails, and then nothing.

He was back in the industrial hallway. Oily black hovered over the edge of his senses. Yellow lights hung precariously on the ceiling. It was a sight that he had not seen in a long time. He had wished it was a little longer.

The dimly lit hallway guided him to his destination, the walls around him almost pushing him forward. He took a few steps, carefully placing each foot upon the soaked floor. Metal bars of a cage drifted into his sight. His eyes widened and he flew back in a stumbled leap.

"I never even noticed how close I was…" Naruto breathed.

"Of course you didn't. It's not like you're in your right mind at the moment." The voice had a mocking tilt to its words, and it was easy to place.

Naruto shifted his body to keep the revealed doppelganger in sight, not saying anything as he pondered his next few actions.

"Silent treatment, huh? It's not like I don't know what your plan is. Pretty crazy if you ask me, and maybe if you ask the Kyuubi." The words held a slight threat in them. Naruto's plan would fail immediately upon discovery by the Kyuubi.

"You won't tell it." Naruto's words came out strong in contrast with what he felt.

The doppelganger jumped from where it was in the corner, the shadows sliding off to reveal it crouching close to the cage. Too close.

"I wonder how you can say that so confidently." Its eyes were amused now, and it placed a hand on the steel bar near it.

"Because despite our differences, you're clearly something "of" me. You feed from the Kyuubi's chakra and hate, growing your malice and influence, but you share one thing with me. What started it all." Naruto's words echoed into the chamber, but the Kyuubi did not seem to want to show itself.

"Hatred for the Kyuubi, huh. Despite that piece of shit wooden board being fake, I guess I liked it too. And the Kyuubi is the primary suspect. But, hmm...I wonder. If I really am a part of you, why do you insist on destroying me? You know what will happen if you succeed." The doppelganger stopped smiling, its face and eyes deathly serious.

A morose smile slowly formed on Naruto's face. He looked down into the palm of his hand.

"You're right. It's crazy to destroy a part of yourself. But it's too late for me. You're too strong, only getting stronger as the seal holding the Kyuubi loosens. At this point, if I were to give up, you would become me." Naruto looked up suddenly. Time was winding down, he needed to start.

A column of water grew from the ground, wrapping around his legs. The cyclone of water pushed him up, slowly lifting him towards the center of the gate where a paper seal was placed. The curling black ink of fuinjutsu was evident: Open or Close.

He had tried before to close it, hoping to strengthen the seal. But it was to no avail. The seal itself resisted greatly. At best he could temporarily suppress the Kyuubi's chakra, but the fuinjutsu was loose and getting looser. He didn't have the knowledge to do much beyond that.

From the fundamentals in the academy, at the least ones he could barely remember, he knew of seals; specifically the ones that made exploding tags. Fuinjutsu was essentially a written language of chakra. Iruka had described it as a ninja's way of engineering complicated jutsu. It was beyond most ninja, including him. The only bits of knowledge he could claim however, told him that exploding tags were very similar to the seal holding the gate closed. To "open" an exploding tag was to start the fuse for the explosion. He could extrapolate this concept to the gate seal.

If he were to open the seal on the gate, Naruto knew it would unleash the Kyuubi.

With practiced movements, his five fingers lit up with blue fire. Like exploding notes, to manipulate a fuinjutsu you needed pure chakra. He did not understand what Iruka meant back then of course, but time revealed quite a few things.

His eyes drifted to the right of the seal and a crimson orb in darkness froze his movements.

"This foolish idea again. You cannot close the seal on your own, especially as you released so much of my chakra before attempting it." Its voice was slow and methodical, as if it was thinking furiously and delivering the words as an afterthought.

"You are correct. Closing the seal is impossible. In fact, I plan on opening this cage for you." Naruto's eyes closed in reflex as the Kyuubi roared.

"What game are you playing now!? Releasing me means death, and your death does not release me from this prison as this accursed place you've found yourself in has already shown! Has your brain rotted from time!?" Bubbles of crimson clashed against the groaning cage walls and bars as the Kyuubi let loose its anger and frustration.

"If I were outside this...place, then yes, I would die. Instantaneously. Mostly because my body couldn't handle such a large and integral amount of chakra leaving at once. But I have already planted the seeds. I gathered more than five tails of your chakra before I entered here, and in response my mind has brought me to this representation of the seal." His words were resolute and focused despite his fingers shaking as he cast off the paper seal on the gate. Behind the paper was a gate mechanism, representative of the seal's lock. Bright blue fingertips tips latched onto the swirling black fuinjutsu on his stomach.

"Foolish! Jinchuriki who are separated from their Bijuu will always die. It matters not if it is instantly or but a few seconds. You have condemned yourself to unnecessary suffering." The Bijuu fell back into the darkness following its words, convinced that Naruto had made a mistake.

The Jinchuriki took a deep breath, as if he were exhaling all the anxiety within him.

His eyes sharpened into sapphires and he rotated his glowing blue hand.

The gong and sound of metal gears meshing together reverberated throughout the chamber. Waves of water were pushed from the unlocked cage gates in a torrent of power just beyond the darkness. And then silence.

"This is going to hurt," muttered Naruto, the understatement all the more prevalent as a roar of epic proportions nearly collapsed his ears.

Crimson chakra flew in a pressure wave, smashing the metal walls and the water beneath Naruto's feet. The leaves and branches that made up his clothes flew erratically with the wind. Covering his eyes, Naruto could only feel the impending doom about to be unleashed.

Naruto exploded to the left, sacrificing his right side to take the brunt of long, jagged claws. The impact sent him into a tumble of energy, a large gap in his chest wheezing out blood. He watched in shock as his own blood and failing enhancement chakra intertwined in a shimmering chaos of light.

The blue of his eyes went dark as his head toppled into the murky water and his body ragdolled across the chamber. Ludicrous amounts of momentum carried him what felt like miles, up became down and the world turned into vapor. Finally, the chaos ended in pure agony as his back met metal. Compressed bones snapped against cracked metal, and the sliver of chakra pressurizing his body as enhancement collapsed in on itself, leaving him barely conscious. His mind drifted much like his body as it fell slowly into the stagnant, black water.

'It can't end like this. Move!' Naruto's thoughts felt slow, as if they had to move through the water surrounding him.

He felt something yank him up painfully by his blood-stained yellow hair.

It was only when he opened his eyes to look at what was holding him did he realize his eyes were closed. Water dripped down from his body as he looked into the red pupils of his doppelganger.

"Stupid. What did you expect? That it would let you escape the seal so easily? When you opened that gate-" The doppelganger's finger flicked backwards to somewhere he couldn't make out "-this place became just as much the Kyuubi no Yoko's as it was yours. Escaping is probably impossible with its chakra bearing down."

Naruto fell onto his knees and coughed roughly into his hand, spitting out the blood that filled his throat.

"You-! Why are you helping…?" The rasp came out painfully.

"Don't know. But that's enough talking, it's here."

Red chakra swirled out of the darkness as the Kyuubi no Yoko appeared, a pair of its claws stained red with Naruto's blood. The air became heavy with bloodlust and chakra.

"That look of pain on your face, Naruto, it was something satisfying for once. It does not matter whether you work with your darker self, you will experience more of that pain before your death."

Naruto was pulled violently back by his doppelganger as one of the Kyuubi's tails whipped across the spot they were just in, bisecting the floor and water. Waves of water flew from the impact zone, accosting the sides of the prison.

"Get up 'ya idiot. It's no time to be this weak from a little pain." The grating voice brought a little life to Naruto as annoyance seeped in.

He slowly leaned off his darker self's shoulder, shakily standing up. A sharp pain in his chest nearly dropped him again but he persisted.

"Shut up. I didn't think it would be able to stop me from escaping the seal with just its presence. I'll have to lure it out for this to work." They both blurred out of sight as the Kyuubi roared a blast of pressure and energy across the chamber, nearly being crushed under the enormous force.

Reappearing several dozens of feet away, Naruto and his look-alike found themselves on the chamber ceiling suspended from their feet, looking down at the Kyuubi in its entirety.

Raising his hand, Naruto flung hundreds of near invisible swathes of chakra strings in the direction of the Kyuubi. Glaring blue energy cut into the fiery red chakra of the Bijuu, collapsing to blue particles immediately from the corrosive effect it had.

"Tch. Its chakra is inherently corruptive. The Kyuubi's hatred and malice extends beyond just affecting your inner personality Naruto, the chakra it has can vaporize anything it touches. I wouldn't get too close," whispered his darker half.

Not paying any attention to the doppelganger's words, Naruto brought both his hands together, biting back a yelp from the jostle it gave to his injury. The strings working on it were slowly sewing the wound shut internally, but they wouldn't do anything for the pain.

Chakra strings began to coat his interlocking hands, each of the strings wrapped around them and rotating in a rhythm of energy as he focused more and more chakra. A shimmering glow of chakra began to light up the chamber as tremendous amounts of chakra condensed in the form of strings spun furiously around Naruto's hands.

"Whoa. Got quite a lot of rotation and energy there. Did you make a new technique when I wasn't looking?" The doppelganger seemed strangely unhappy at its own slightly sarcastic words, as if offended that he never used it in any of their battles.

"This attack is a bit above both of us. It was designed solely for the Kyuubi with its chakra in mind. So don't feel too bad," Naruto shot back.

Letting the chakra magnetizing his feet to the ceiling circulate back into his body, Naruto dropped down just above the monster below, barely holding onto the dense energy in his hands. His body flew down, only a few seconds away from impact.

The world slowed down as Naruto fell directly in front of the Kyuubi, its eyes making contact with his own. His interlocked fingers stayed together as they spread out into open hands.

"Rinkai-ten!" His fingers exploded away from one another and the vibrating strings that were temporarily held cracked off, pushing each of his hands to the side as if enclosing something invisible. The strings fused into a brilliant streak of blue that hurtled through the air separating Naruto and the Kyuubi. Instantly a crack of pressurized air reverberated from the ninja as the sound barrier broke. The Kyuubi's eyes widened for a millisecond before it moved and nine tails hung over it to act as a shield.

'It's fast!' Naruto's thoughts barely processed before the streak of blue struck the crimson tails and the world exploded.

Energy and steam hung in the air as Naruto flew across the water, barely keeping his balance as lights swam in and out of his vision.

"Don't feel like doing that again." Groaned Naruto. He fell to the right as his doppelganger landed near him, barely catching him.

"That attack was quite dangerous ya'know. Condensing your already small chakra strings using rotation. If it touched you anywhere, I think even the Bubble would take time to bring you back." The red eyed Naruto look-alike shook its head. Now wasn't the time for distractions and small talk. It threw Naruto over its shoulder, ignoring his groan, and watched as dozens of its own strings carried him off to somewhere slightly less fatal.

"You. I do not understand why you insist on helping your mortal enemy!" The voice of the Kyuubi was as sudden as it was ferocious, Naruto's attack seemingly doing no damage.

It swept the lingering steam from the center of the prison, its claws moving in a red blur through the air. The doppelganger barked out a laugh, forcing itself to grin at the terrifying presence.

"Mortal enemy? What do you think this is? A game? If anything can be called that, it's you!" Razor sharp strings flew in time with its words as the doppelganger leapt in the direction of the broken bars nearby. Chakra strings soared into the chakra of the Kyuubi, the ends rotating furiously with condensed energy.

"Enough!" The strings collapsed and fell apart, the residual chakra from the powerful attack exploding away from the Kyuubi. The Kyuubi slowly moved forward, but the effects of Naruto's attack had been finally revealed with its decision not to use its tails.

The doppelganger's teeth shined in the dark, realizing its gamble had paid off.

"Well, well, well… Would you look at that, that guy's attack hurt you, the great Bijuu!"

The Kyuubi's tails hung behind it as usual, yet they moved haphazardly, a contrast to the beginning of the fight when the nine tails glided with the finesse of human fingers. Crimson chakra floated off the tails, as if multiple holes with leaks of chakra in the Kyuubi's flesh were made.

'It seems as if the Rinkai-ten is a lot more subtle in its effects than I thought. It sliced down the chakra of the Kyuubi, specifically the chakra in its tails. Like a sword versus a hammer. The sword's sharp edge focuses more energy into a smaller spot, making it more effective. Now imagining the same with chakra, throw a wave of chakra and you can easily defend against it, but focus all that energy into a sharp pinpoint and you've got something dangerous. Now focus more energy into points much smaller than a sword's edge and small enough to slip past the Kyuubi's outer chakra, and you can literally cut the Kyuubi where it can't defend.' The thoughts furiously ran through the doppelganger's head, and despite itself, it was impressed with Naruto.

'To hurt something like that, you-no, we've grown…'

Broken gate pieces rose up from the water beside the red-eyed copy of Naruto, chakra strings wrapped tightly around each of the metal. It launched the strings in different directions, floating them around the entire chamber. It looked towards where it had carried off Naruto. He was more rested now apparently, as he was quietly watching the battle near the back of the chamber.

'Just watch Naruto, I have a trick or two up my sleeves as well.'

With a wave of its hand the dozens of string with metals attached to them had begun to rotate around the chamber. Each of which was dangerously close to hitting each other.

The Kyuubi glanced around, confused at what the dark half of Naruto had in mind. Regardless, it slowly lifted its tails to eye-level, a few more seconds and the damage done by the annoyance would disappear. A loud ringing disrupted its thoughts and made it refocus on the metal pieces rotating through the air. They were much faster now, a gleam of reflecting light the only indicator of where they were in the air.

Another loud ringing echoed into the chamber, revealing two gleams of metal had just glanced off one another. Sparks of red lit up the dark for a few seconds before disappearing into the water below. Another ring, another impact. The frequency at which the metal glanced off each other was getting larger. Sparks were occurring so frequently now that it barely stayed dark.

"Your parlor trick is a bit disappoint-"

The ringing increased dramatically as more gleams of metal glanced off one another, each adding to a stream of sparks until all the pieces of metal had begun to glow with heat.

'That heat… It seems as if the copy will attempt to use it as an attack. Pointless. No amount of heat could damage my chakra.'

Unnoticed by the Kyuubi the water that had covered the chamber's floor had begun to shift to the back of the chamber. The water itself being drained into a makeshift hole in the wall near the old seal.

The pieces of metal clashing against one another now were glowing brilliantly, casting the chamber in an orange light.

"Now!" The scream echoed from the lungs of the doppelganger and in a wide arc the pieces swung past the Kyuubi to enter the hole in the wall behind it.

Water enclosed. Temperatures reaching thousands of degrees. A slight hiss of scalding air and water was the only hint before the Kyuubi exploded down the chamber as kilotons of energy in the form of vaporized air smashed against its cloak.

The doppelganger glanced up, capturing Naruto's eyes before the wave of destructive steam took him into its grasp as it did the Kyuubi's.

Naruto awoke with a gasp. He looked around, but his movements were sluggish as if he was missing something. Red blocked out his vision as he finally realized.

'That guy! He really did it. The Kyuubi is free from its prison."

Naruto dove towards the shadows of a certain large tree. He only had a bit of time before the Kyuubi oriented itself to the world beyond after so many years in captivity.

Hundreds of chakra strings, each glowing incandescently with dense power, flew from his left hand through the boundary of the Bubble on his left, the Kyuubi only a few feet to his right. Sensing the strings on the opposite end of the Bubble he maneuvered them around dozens of the gargantuan trunks of the trees just on the edge of the Bubble.

With the slightest of movements he pulled each string back through the boundary, reattaching them to his right hand. The pulley system was finally formed. A explosive roar behind him broke his concentration.

"Awake already?" The taunting in his voice did not seem intelligent considering the situation.

"You filthy humans, always rushing to experience pain after pain!" The time for talk was done for the Kyuubi apparently, as it did not hesitate to leap in Naruto's direction. The Bijuu's claws gleamed in the daylight of the Bubble, glancing against the blond child before its world disappeared, to be replaced with an eerily similar, but truly different perspective. Thick cords of chakra smashed against its torso before its vision changed back to the familiar area it had first appeared in.

"You've fallen between the boundaries of the Bubble. Now to keep you there." Naruto shot the strings from both his hands, the left ones to the right and the right ones to the left. They looped around a copse of tree trunks before reattaching themselves to his fingertips.

The Kyuubi was encircled. Its body was held in a pulley system from both ends, in which its body was tightly wound with chakra strings.

"These are nothing!" The Kyuubi shook the entire earth beneath their feet with a shock of chakra. Crimson chakra tore trenches across the Bubble, uprooting entire trees and swarming the air with cyclones of energy. Barely holding on to the ground with chakra, Naruto spun dozens more chakra strings directly from his back, each stronger than the last, and weaved them into the ground. They wrapped around the roots and foundations of the forest, giving him a measure of hold.

His muscles strained with chakra enhancement as he slowly stepped back. The pulley system tightening from both ends at the distance he was making. And in response the Kyuubi became even more trapped with little room between it and the Bubble's boundary. It abruptly disappeared, a flicker of its image all that was left before it reappeared again from the other end of the Bubble.

The realization came to the Kyuubi's eyes as its pupils sharpened.

It did not bother with talking, its body began to thrash with an ungodly energy. Its cloak of chakra inflicting malice and hatred over Naruto's very state of mind.

"Argh!" The scream tore from his throat despite his efforts. Haziness and liquid fell from his eyes. Tears he thought. The world became noise, too much to discern. The malice and hatred became stronger.

'So close…' His thoughts chugged on. One step, two steps. The Kyuubi flickered again before reappearing.

A ball of purple and black chakra surged from the monster's mouth.

'When did it do that?' The ball instantaneously moved, a speed that Naruto thought was possible only in dreams. His left arm ceased to exist and the earth behind him turned to dust as the ball of chaos penetrated deep with the Earth.

The resulting explosion lit up everything around it. Bright fire burned into Naruto's corneas only disappearing a second later, leaving him with hazy pain and exhaustion. He could feel that everything behind him was gone. The explosion may have even destroyed the clan house. But it wasn't too late.

Chakra strings that were once attached to his vaporized left hand slowly arrayed themselves to his torso. He glanced back and his mouth fell open.

The hole expanded all the way till the end of the boundary. A crater of gargantuan size and terrifying evidence of power. It was more than humbling.

Hatred and malice careened into Naruto again before he could relax. Stiffening immediately he jumped down the side of the hole, swinging with his right hand anchored to the trapping strings.

He hit the side of the hole hard as a sudden tension forced him back in the direction of the Kyuubi. The jagged rocks cut deep into his face causing streams of blood to drip down his jaw.

'I can't stop now.' Biting his lip hard Naruto gasped as chakra left his back again. The strings flew towards the bottom of the hole, hooking to the side and near the bottom.

"Agh!" Blood spat out of his mouth, staining the white teeth with blood. His missing arm had begun to throb with a horrific pain. But if he could just finish this, it would be over.

He barely caught his face from smashing into the wall with his right arm, crushing the bedrock and drawing grooves with his bloody nails. The arm was slowly forced up, despite his resistance, taking him with it as it was dragged harshly into the rockface and up the hole wall. The chakra at his back tightened with tension, barely resisting the awesome strength of what surely was the Kyuubi.

"No way you bastard. I-" The image of a lookalike and red eyes flickered through his mind, "-We tried too-"

The rock beneath his feet shattered, a beautiful clarity filling him with energy as he dug his feet into the rock for a foothold, "-damn hard to lose now!"

Chakra attached to his back glowed as a bloody Naruto pumped as much of it as he could put out, condensing so much that he was sure it would kill him.

A disturbing roar echoed out into the air and sounds of screeching pierced his ears. But he did not stop. Unbridled tears spilled from eyes, such was the horror he could hear happening above him, hidden away.

The air coiled and dark crimson chakra struck the top of the Bubble, tinting the entirety of it red. And the horrified screeching continued.

The memories were coming back to him now. His experiment with the wooden bridge and its explosive conclusion. The beginning and end of the wood merged at a single point, defying the laws of physics and order. And, like all things that defy nature, it was brutally put down. The wood had vaporized at the ends, leaving nothing, not even ash.

He had always thought it was just an exceedingly powerful explosion, enough to remove all traces of what it had destroyed. Yet the more he thought about, the more he remembered the utter lack of evidence generally associated with an explosion, the more he began to think of it less as an explosion and more as a purge. A purge fueled by the force of nature itself. One not even the Kyuubi could resist.

The sounds were dying off now. He looked up. The sky has returned to its original color, blue as it always was.

He could feel the lack of tension on the strings attached to him. Was it really over? Did he win?

Biting down hard, Naruto walked up the side, barely keeping himself from slipping on the blood dripping down his body and staining everything he touched.

'One more step now.'

He fell forward onto the grass, not enough energy to even look at where the Kyuubi once was.

'Just look damn it.' His head slowly moved up and an eye peered over to the Bubble's boundary. Nothing. Absolutely nothing was there anymore.

"Heh. Ha. Ha-HA!" The laugh came out suddenly, echoing into the air around him. He let his head fall back into the grass.

"Ha-ha. It's over damn it."

Tears began to stream down the sides of Naruto's eyes, despite the laughter escaping him.

'I really feel like crying right now.' Sobs escaped him, but he didn't care. He was finally free of the monster that was within him. But unbidden, his doppelganger came to mind.

'My copy, I wonder where it is- I wonder where he is now… '

* * *

 _4 Years Later_

Clack. Clack. Clack. Naruto stopped for a few seconds, admiring the craftsmanship of his latest pair of footwear.

The wooden geta sandals did not tend to comfort his feet, but their durability and longevity were miles better compared to the grass moccasins he fashioned sometime ago.

A sigh escaped him as he continued on to his home, the clacking of wood resonating in the silent air.

It was some time later that Naruto sat atop his house, the scene of still trees in the backdrop of his latest efforts to learn the mysteries of Chakra.

"OK. spiritual emphasis at about 65%. Now to get something like that… I think maybe I would best follow the Ram seal up with a Snake, or do a Boar then Ram."

Scratching his chin, he scribbled something on the table drawn on the parchment laid in front of him.

"That will give me the balance of energies I want, but I also need to affect the remote chakra so I should follow up with another Tiger."

The scratching of parchment filled the air as he devised his newest combination, a first in Naruto's application of a theory regarding chakra.

Time had delivered Naruto hints over the years, eventually leading him to discover a key component in manipulating chakra. In its simplest terms, there were two sides of chakra, the realistic, grounded side, and the side that almost seemed like magic. He called them Physical and Spiritual Energy, respectively. He had pondered the idea ages ago, but it was not until feeling a subtle difference in the three basic jutsu that the idea really took root. A general undertone to the Henge and Bunshin jutsu was a feeling of pressure, as if he had undergone swimming in a deep lake and his head had experienced a slight compression. The feeling did not seem to be replicated as much when using the Kawarimi.

The idea had been that this feeling of pressure may explain the differences in the actual effects of the jutsu. The Henge and Bunshin may be jutsu just like the Kawarimi, but they were both almost magical in function, taking into account mental images he conjured in the middle of using hand seals. The Kawarimi on the other hand was overwhelmingly physical in its functions; chakra physically grasping something remotely before pulling him in much the same way. He understood that both relied on powers beyond those found in everyday life, but there was a distinct imaginative quality to something like the Henge and Bunshin.

And so the terms came to be. Spiritual Energy, imagination given form. Physical Energy, form given animation.

This theory had begun to take more shape as he had found a viable pattern that explained the differences between jutsu. Just like chakra, jutsu themselves had two sides: The hand seals that actually launched or initiated a jutsu, and the underlying balancing of spiritual and physical energies that emerged as hand seals were combined.

He had found that the core of balancing spiritual and physical energies for all three basic jutsu could be at the Ram seal; forming a focal point in which hand seals succeeding or preceding it influenced the balance of energy. And since the Kawarimi was not explicitly imaginative in its functions, it would also explain why it did not use a Ram seal- rather it would not be slanted towards any single type of energy, making the jutsu have close to an equal balance of energies.

In all, it meant that to design a new jutsu, he had to not only take into consideration the basic seals that outlined the mechanics, he had to order the hand seals in a way that gave him the proper balance of energy suitable for the jutsu. A daunting task to say the least. But he had a start. If he could modify one of his three jutsu in a way that proved his theory, he could begin the arduous task of designing a jutsu from scratch.

"I'll go through the normal seals for Bunshin, and then add a Ram, followed by a Snake and finally a Tiger." Naruto jumped from his perch onto the ground in front of the house.

There were no signs of battle here. No crater. No charred dirt or even scuffed grass. It was disorienting, as the Bubble always seemed to be, but there was a disturbing element in how easily the Bubble defied reality even in the face of the Kyuubi's ultimate powers.

Parchment littered the grounds, however. Some pieces had fled away in the years, finding their way outside despite his careful organization of things. After the removal of the Kyuubi and his abrupt revival after losing so much blood, he had seen the results of the energy blast the Bijuu launched.

The clan house had been incinerated and brought back by the Bubble. But without all the work he had put into writing pages atop of pages of ideas. As a result, the four years were spent doing much of what had come before the battle, and perhaps even before the discovery of the Kyuubi: Coming up with new ideas for escape.

He had a few ideas in the works but this was his most promising. Closing his eyes, Naruto grasped the chakra within him, the hum of power reverberating ever so slightly. A rushing feeling filled his veins, the familiar sensation diluted to a comforting one with time and control. It was unnecessary for him to intentionally manipulate his chakra when using hand seals, especially as the hand seal chakra was focused unconsciously. However, it had been years since his chakra had reached a point where his active manipulation of chakra through his hand seals was more efficient than the unconscious circulation, saving him chakra and stamina.

Without the Kyuubi within him, despite how much he hated to admit it, he was weakened significantly. The once stream of powerful, churning Bijuu chakra that melded into his chakra had bolstered his reserves a little too much. It had been obvious that the seal that governed his relationship with the Kyuubi was complex enough to affect him deeply, long after it was gone. His chakra system had not been damaged, or the Bubble would have reversed it. But it did change in such a way that that drawing it out always felt fundamentally flawed, a missing piece always out of reach.

The feeling had faded with time and his control of chakra began to flourish once again, though he could not help but think how much more powerful he would have been with the Kyuubi within him.

Blinking his thoughts free, he began. Naruto's fingers struck together at blinding speeds.

'Ram. Snake. Tiger. Ram. Snake. Tiger.'

An explosion of smoke heralded itself at a point to the right of him, the area he had focused his jutsu on.

As the smoke slowly cleared he could see the old face of the Third Hokage, his body hunched and his eyes shadowed by a familiar hat.

Hope swelled within him. Slowly he reached his out to the image, his hand shaking slightly.

His fingers warped the image of the Third, distorting it before collapsing the Henged Bunshin, a jutsu of his very own.

"Yes!" Joy filled the air of the Bubble as Naruto yelled out.

'This is it. Squandering and failing every step of the way and I've finally found the beginning. The beginning of escape.'

"Watch me! I'm coming everyone!" And so it went, that Naruto Uzumaki found his footing in the spiral to despair.

* * *

 _700 Years Later_

"Here...I'm returning this." He had been holding it for a while now.

Sasuke looked down, his hand shook as he reached out to take the scratched headband from Naruto's hand.

"I'll keep this until… we really settle things between us." Naruto looked into his eyes in reply, a smile coming to his face that mirrored the one on Sasuke's. And then Sasuke left as he usually did.

"Hmm, I think it's time to go back now." Naruto took off in the direction of the village. The end of the 4th Shinobi War did not come without casualties, and as the Hero of the war he would need to be with the people so that morale doesn't spiral downwards. He hoped he could catch Kakas-

His foot stopped moving. Nothing moved, like he was frozen in place.

'What is this!? Kurama, what's going on?' No reply met his frantic thoughts and fear crept in.

"Calm down." Naruto's eyes swiveled to the side to see… himself. He was young. What he would look like if he was eleven or twelve. His clothes, a long dark cloak over a simple shirt and pants, were made out of a strange material, the texture similar to bark. The strangest of all, however, was his face. It was undeniably his face with the same blue eyes and the three marks on each cheek, but there was nothing else there. No amusement, anger, fear, interest... there was nothing in those eyes and the stillness of his face filled his stomach with lead.

The young copy moved forward and brought his hand up to Naruto's head.

"You don't know what's going on of course. But this is business as usual, I think we're on our 200th trial." The words were nonsense of course, the boy was probably an enemy ninja with a strange obsession for him. And disturbing elements aside he needed to unfreeze himself fast.

"Stop struggling. Your power is remotely controlled at all times, you see. It adds to the smoothness of the plot. If we let you have full power all the time, well, it just wouldn't be as exciting would it?"

Stop struggling? He never struggled more in his life.

The young boy put his hand down abruptly and sat down on a nearby rock, and for the first time he could see something on the face, his own face. Weariness. Lines appeared and he thought he might have been mistaken putting the age of the copy at eleven or twelve, or the Henge was deeply flawed.

"I'm sorry, you know. I'll be frank. You're just a clone, put into this elaborate story-line with a bunch of other clones. The boss, the original, well he went sort of-" The boy twirled his fingers around his head. The young copy's boss was crazy? Of course he was, and this guy was probably just as crazy. Clones? Elaborate story-line? Where the hell was Kurama?

"It started a few hundred years ago, the boss had put in so much effort, you know? He created thousands of jutsu, each one closer to freeing him from the Bubble. But he never got it. He never was able to escape, no matter how many clones he created to help him out, no matter how many years past and how many things he discovered about chakra." A loud sigh escaped the copy, or was it a clone now? Impossible.

"Eventually, he just snapped. Ordered all his clones to start changing the landscape. You see, despite the fact that he couldn't escape, the boss became impossibly powerful. He could even expand space itself, making the jail he was trapped in a thousand times larger." That sounded like Kaguya. Just when the war ended there was another powerful guy like that…

The young copy of Naruto picked up a small rock near him, weighing it for a few seconds before chucking it into the air.

"Elemental jutsu were mastered long ago so we easily shaped the mountains, the lakes, and everything in between. We created Konoha, made up a few other villages with their own designs since we didn't know what it was like on the outside. We even put in different people, all clones with their memories changed to play along with this fucking farce of a life. Clones like me, the ones in charge of management, kept most of our memories from when we were first created, though we don't know about anything specific before popping into existence."

Naruto just looked at him.

"I wouldn't believe me either. But unfortunately, it's true. This life was supposed to be set up so the boss would be able to "escape" in a way. The first time he tried living as the Naruto in the elaborate hoax things just failed multiple times, his power alienated people and he couldn't help but see them as fakes. He refused to remove his own memories and eventually just created a clone to live out a life in his own stead as he watched. You."

The copy suddenly stood up. He raised his hand to Naruto's face, and a tint of blue light grew from the palm.

Words failed to form in Naruto's mind.

'Was this real? This couldn't be. It just couldn't goddammit.'

"But like all things, the show ended. And so the boss ordered it to happen again by wiping out everyone's memory, including yours. He usually liked it when we spiced things up. Adding a character here and there, removing one, changing history… You know, things that would make the story more interesting. This story-line ended quite nicely with minimal deaths, and I feel bad about doing this so I thought I would just explain it to you."

Naruto closed his eyes. Everything was a lie. A horrible, disturbing lie. But it was a lie that never ended. He wouldn't disappear and maybe, he could find a way out of this. Tears threatened to escape but even that failed him as the paralysis held.

"Maybe the boss will change his mind eventually and try to escape, but in the meantime, the show must go on." The copy smiled slightly before he began.

The last thing Naruto heard was a sound of breaking glass before nothingness consumed him.

* * *

Author's Note:

Hey, it's been a while. Not as long as it's been for Naruto! I thought of putting a summary at the top of the last chapter since it's been a long time but I thought it wouldn't matter seeing as how I do go over a few things that happened last time in this chapter. About the ending, people might hate it but this was one of the two endings I had for the story and the one I really wanted to see published. The second ending involved Naruto breaking out which would have gone on for a few more chapters and wouldn't be the standard OP Naruto that followed canon for the sake of it. Might post it if I ever get around to cleaning it up. Though I am focusing on a few more stories involving One Piece and Naruto so look out for that.

Thanks for reading!


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